For eight years, the case has pitted Google against the Château de Balleure, an establishment with only two rooms located in a hamlet in Saône-et-Loire. Its owner, Raoul Salama, accuses the platform of having harmed his business by publishing negative opinions from people who had never used its services.
In 2018, then in 2020, two bad reviews appeared on Google Maps. For the owner, the economic consequences are significant. According to its estimates, a 10% drop in its rating can lead to a 30% drop in its turnover.
After several years of proceedings, the courts will order Google in 2022 to reveal the identity of the authors of the comments. When contacted, they admitted to having never stayed at the castle. Some had simply passed nearby, on foot or by bike, when a Google Maps notification invited them to rate the establishment, without asking them if they had been a customer. In total, the owner is now contesting 17 reviews.
“Google has no reliable way to verify”
In court, Google’s lawyer, Sébastien Proust, defended the functioning of the platform. “Google has no reliable way of establishing whether someone has used the services” of an establishment, he explained.
According to him, an Internet user can perfectly give his opinion on a place simply discovered during a walk. It would therefore not necessarily be a false comment, since its author is a real person.
Systematically verifying the evaluations would require considerable resources, argues the lawyer. He also believes that too strict a control would risk increasing requests to delete negative comments and undermining freedom of expression.
For Frédéric Hopgood, lawyer for Château de Balleure, these practices deceive consumers and penalize businesses. “These false opinions are a scourge,” he denounces, recalling that it took 43 and 39 months respectively to obtain the deletion of the first two disputed comments.
The click economy denounced
The plaintiff’s counsel also accuses Google of relying primarily on artificial intelligence to control reviews. It calls for true human moderation.
According to him, the problem is not simply a lack of resources. He suspects the platform of tolerating these practices because the interactions, whether based on authentic opinions or not, contribute to its economic activity. “Clicks, on real or false reviews, drive the Google economy,” he says.
The defense contests this analysis and emphasizes the technical and legal difficulties of generalized control. The Chalon-sur-Saône court will deliver its decision on January 12, 2027.
