Google to Use AI to Fight Fake Reviews in Maps

Google has shared more details about how it will combat fake reviews in its Google Maps mapping service in 2024. The company has deployed AI-powered technology to better identify “companies that try to game the system by buying fake five-star reviews from people who haven’t even visited their establishments.”

Image source: 9to5google.com

For example, Google now has the ability to “review reviews more frequently to identify new abuse, even months after they’ve been posted.” In the US, UK, and India, Google Maps now displays a flag indicating that “suspicious five-star reviews have recently been removed.” In total, last year, Google “restricted posts from more than 900,000 accounts that repeatedly violated our policies.”

Next month, Google Maps will begin rolling out warnings about potentially fake reviews globally. In addition, a special algorithm based on Gemini’s AI model will identify potentially suspicious edits to user profiles. It is noted that Gemini only needs a few examples to start searching for suspicious reviews across many business categories and languages.

Google’s report says that since the beginning of 2024, special algorithms have helped block or remove more than 240 million reviews that violated Google Maps’ policies. Notably, the vast majority of such reviews were removed before they could be seen by platform users. The advanced detection system has blocked or removed more than 70 million edits to place descriptions that violated the service’s policies. “More than 12 million fake business profiles” have also been removed or blocked.