Sometimes, even the best businesses get bad reviews online. Google My Business is one of the most successful and popular platforms which hosts third-party content and where customers (and sometimes others) can express their opinions about the service levels of a business that is listed, goods that it supplies and any other aspect of it.
Google My Business say they are not a creator or mediator of content and that they encourage business owners to resolve any disputes directly with the individual who posted the content.
However, Google provides a platform which allows such reviews of businesses under pseudo-names.
So, when a business finds itself burdened by a poor review that was posted by someone who is effectively not identifiable by that user’s pseudo name, it may be very difficult for the business affected to adequately respond to or deal with the criticism. Even worse, if the review is untrue, say posted by a malicious competitor, or aspects of it are defamatory then it may even be difficult to enforce any legal rights that you have under defamation laws.
Google say that “if you cannot reach an agreement and choose to pursue legal action against the individual who posted the content, and that action results in a judicial determination that the material is illegal or should be removed, please send us the court order seeking removal.” Requests for identifying information about an anonymous poster are only entertained following what Google calls “valid legal process”.
There may be certain other, less drastic steps available. In the case of Google, they publish a number of review content policies with which users must comply when they post reviews. By way of example, one such policy is that a user is not permitted to publish multiple reviews of one business using different usernames. That is to prevent a malicious reviewer from awarding a low satisfaction score to a business by creating and posting multiple reviews under more than one username.
So, if you feel that a review has violated Google’s review content policies, Google say you can report it through one of these methods:
- hover your cursor over the review, and click on the small flag icon that appears
- click on the three-dot menu located on the top-right of the review.
According to Google, reporting through these methods sends the concern to Google’s review policy team, who will process the report. While you may not receive any further response from them, know that they are investigating the issues you raised and will take action as appropriate.
Otherwise, we welcome any of our members who are concerned about unfounded Google My Business reviews to contact us for details of the website to respond directly to posted reviews. If your business is not a member yet, we welcome you to join and enjoy the many benefits associated with Chamber membership.
Image: Edho Pratama