A few weeks ago, Google explained how it manages reviews on its main navigation platform, BGR reported. By combining advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with humans reviewing fraudulent Google Maps reviews, Google seeks to provide a safe, authentic experience within the app.
Google has now released a new Google Maps report detailing the various actions the company is taking in 2021 to protect Google Maps users from various types of malicious content that could spread through comments.
Reviews are an integral part of Google Maps, and they can come in handy when exploring new places, especially when users are traveling. Whether on Google Maps for Android or iOS, or the web version, users can quickly check by looking up a place’s reviews. Once you find it, click on the average rating, up to five stars.
The Comments tab will pop up, showing the opinions of other users. This is also how users comment on a place on Google Maps after visiting it. If left unchecked, this commenting mechanism can be easily abused. Google Maps users may post various fraudulent Google Maps reviews. The simplest type of abuse involves artificially raising a business’s rating. But more malicious actors might consider posting a variety of content that could harm others.
That’s where Google’s advanced review management system comes into play. According to the company, its role is to stop the misuse of Google Maps reviews.
The company provided various statistics on its actions against Google Maps review abuse last year. Google says it receives about 20 million views from Maps users every day. This is where its machine learning and human operators intervene to reduce the amount of fraudulent content.
Google says that abusive Google Maps reviews make up less than 1 percent of content viewed on the platform. Here are the kinds of malicious comments or Google Maps edits the company blocked or blocked last year:
- More than 100 million edits of business information were discovered by artificial intelligence;
- 7 million false commercial profiles – 630,000 of which were reported by users;
- 12 million attempts to create fake business profiles;
- 8 million attempts to apply for a business profile;
- Over 95 million comments for policy violations, of which 60,000 were for COVID-19 related violations;
- Over 1 million user reviews were reported directly to Google;
- Over 190 million photos and 5 million videos were blurry, low-quality, or violated content policies.
Additionally, Google disabled 1 million accounts for engaging in fraudulent Google Maps reviews and other policy-violating activities. Google also said it protected 100,000 businesses after detecting suspicious activity.