Potential Ethical Conflict: Google My Business Paid Reviews

[Travis_Bailey]

I've been sitting on this for a while due to The Busies. So if this is nothing new, feel free to lash me several times with a somewhat moist noodle. And in that event, I promise not to make it weird.

I use the Rewards application, from Google. Long story short, you fill in some demographic information and you receive Google Play credit when you complete surveys. It's a nice way to get a book, app, or music for little effort.

But after giving a friend of mine a ride to a local hotel, I've received multiple survey requests that relate to that hotel brand. And it asks me to drop a local review, for extra Google Play credit. How is that ethical?

Their own docs clearly state there is no way to pay for better local ranking, but they also admit reviews can improve local ranking. So isn't soliciting reviews, for any sort of compensation, at least a bit unethical? What are your thoughts?

Attached are screenshots of the solicitation and GMB documentation.

w4hEe

[Travis_Bailey]

I probably got hit by the survey a half dozen times over the course of a year. The problem was it's really difficult to take screenshots on my phone, without closing out to the 'desktop'. Finally managed to capture one about six months ago, then sat on it.

I know the brands involved, so it's probably pretty easy to verify if the pay per review thing was sanctioned. I'm just not certain which tree to bark up.

To me, it's clear the ethics have been at least modestly bent. Compensation involved with any review is a paid review. But the dark side tells me if this is readily available, it might be handy one day.

[MiriamEllis]

Hmm, not sure what to make of that, and what I don't like about the graphic you captured is that image showing the 5 stars on it. I wish I had some more time to dig into this, but I'm swamped right now. If this is being regulated by Google, the there's nothing to do about it, but like I said, I'm not familiar with Rewards, so I don't know all the ins and outs.

[Travis_Bailey]

Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. It appears to me that it's an option a marketer may choose, and Google is cool with it - hence the 'Hey, this is gonna be public, but you'll get more credit. The portion of the survey I captured has a graphic.

Usually it's just text with tick boxes, and/or radio buttons.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Travis,
I've been thinking about this thread and wanted to come back to it with a question for you. You wrote:

"But after giving a friend of mine a ride to a local hotel, I've received multiple survey requests that relate to that hotel brand. And it asks me to drop a local review, for extra Google Play credit. How is that ethical?"

I'm not signed up for Google Rewards and have a question. Is the solicitation for the review in exchange for an incentive something being automated by Google, or is it your impression that the review ask is stemming from unique language created by the hotel, itself?

[Travis_Bailey]

How do Miriam,

My concern here is that it appears, face value, to be a sanctioned measure. And it wouldn't be the first time Google ran afoul of their own standards. Though I'm a little torn.

On the one hand, it's a review for compensation. On the other, given a larger metro, you can build up a decent bit of reviews on the quick. So it's either a gift horse, or a moral quandary.

That's why I thought it was an interesting question.

I don't think this was a rogue actor thing. I think it was, at least at the time, sanctioned by someone in the Rewards domain.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Travis,

Excellent topic. You have two options here, as what the hotel is doing is absolutely a violation of Google's guidelines if they are offering any kind of incentive in exchange for a Google-based review:

1. If you feel concern for the hotel, you could be kind here and reach out to them directly to let them know they are seriously endangering their entire corpus of reviews as well as their brand reputation by incentivizing reviews. Personally, I would take this route. I would point the hotel to this recent thread in the GMB forum in which a brand was reported for offering free zoo tickets in exchange for reviews and ended up losing 96 of their 101 reviews: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/Spam_and_Policy/page/1/thread-id/22628

It is so not worth the risk! At any time, any customer or competitor could report the hotel and they'd have a total reputation mess on their hands. So, I'd probably do the nice thing and let them know that. Sometimes, brands genuinely do not know the guidelines and haven't made the connection that they are deceiving their own clientele by making an incentivized review appear as though it is unbiased. So, I'd be inclined to give them a heads-up, if I thought ignorance was the root of their marketing activities. I'd be more inclined to believe this if the business was a small hotel. If it's a large hotel chain, I'd be less inclined to believe they'd just made a mistake ... they have a marketing department that shouldn't be allowing this activity to put the brand at risk.

2. However, if you feel the hotel is wittingly doing this, knowing they are deceiving the public and violating Google's guidelines, then you can take this over to the GMB forum and document/report this obvious case of review spam. It will then be up to the TCs there to escalate or not.

Good luck. Unfortunately, review spam is an incredibly widespread issue, often being generated by global networks. It's really unfortunate.