A report from Kyodo today says that Japanese restaurant information and review website Tabelog has had its rankings manipulated by paid review posters. They have found 39 companies which are involved in this practice; the companies promise improved ratings and page views to restaurants through posting fake reviews.
According to the report, Kakaku [1], the company which manages Tabelog, is hoping to suspend the activity of such companies, possibly by taking legal action.
Of course, for websites which depend heavily on user reviews, this sort of dilemma is not uncommon. In the US, Yelp has also encountered similar ‘underground entrepreneurs’ who aim to make a profit from gaming the review system. In China, local review website Dianping faces similar challenges.
Here in Asia just a few weeks back we saw Groupon come under fire in Korea after an employee was found to have written fake product reviews, which resulted in an FTC [2] investigation.
Tabelog websites monthly access (from Kakaku.com)
[Mainichi via @tokyorich on Twitter]
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For more information on price comparison engine Kakaku.com, check out our video explainer. ↩
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Note that this was the Free Trade Commission in Korea, rather than the FTC in the US. ↩