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A comment on Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitors business?. Parent comment

Re:Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitors busin... by kjkjadksj on Sunday July 02, 2023 @07:28PM (#36566906)
Even if you dont want to be listed on google maps, they will sometimes generate a fake listing for you anyhow. I got burned by one of these as a customer, the link for takeout was not actually a site the restaurant was partnered with. I’ve also seen restaurants with similar names url squat these other places.

It seems so bizzare google will publish such information without ever validating it with the business. It must cause a lot of damage and support quite the environment of scammers though.

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Re:Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitors busin... by brucethemoose2 on Sunday July 02, 2023 @07:42PM (#36567001)
> It seems so bizzare google will publish such information without ever validating it with the business.

Why should they? Validation would be expensive, and the false information doesn't hurt Google. Where else are you gonna list?

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Re:Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitors busin... by ben_w on Monday July 03, 2023 @07:01AM (#36571254)
If they don't want to validate it, they shouldn't publish it or sell advertising on a service that used the unverified data. It was OK for the web because that's the only way, but maps have a lot more sources of truth.
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Re:Illegal Life Pro Tip: Want to ruin your competitors busin... by fallinghawks on Sunday July 02, 2023 @09:12PM (#36567558)
This happened to a restaurant I go to a lot. Their Maps listing said there was online ordering, but the link went to a site that even had a disclaimer saying they were not actually affiliated with the restaurant. I reported it to Google and they removed the entry, but anyone can make a change and double checking seems to be cursory at best.
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