In this article on fake online reviews, Les Inrocks explain how unscrupulous companies offer to fabricate fake customer testimonials for mainstream websites and forums.
Besides being illegal, and the fact that the clients of these companies deserve to be publicly exposed for fraud, these practices completely undermine the anonymous review system: when all hotels (for example) have thousands of glowing reviews to their name, all as gushing and fake as one another, a new differentiating criterion will have to be introduced so that consumers can make their choice.
Yet, in a way, this will consist of making sure that reviews are written by real people. It quite simply means lifting web anonymity in this specific case. And who can offer that today? Facebook, Google, Viadéo, LinkedIn… the latter understood this well by creating company pages where members can leave a recommendation.
When it becomes possible to put a face and a name (the notion of a connection between people makes it easier to detect fake profiles) behind a comment, we will truly have credible testimonials. Except that… how many will then agree to leave their review if they can be “tracked”? Won’t we encourage the expression of disappointments at the expense of promoting good practices?
The ideal system remains to be invented…
