“There are hundreds of thousands of stories like mine,” estimates Raoul Salama, owner of the “Le Château de Balleure” guest house in Etrigny (Saône-et-Loire). In fact, “hundreds of millions” around the world, according to American Kay Dean, a former federal investigator who has become an expert in Internet fraud.
In 2018 and then in 2020, the guest house with its usually prestigious reputation received two harsh ratings on Google Maps: one with two stars out of five and another with one. For the small luxury two-bedroom château which targets a prestigious clientele, “the impact was considerable,” recalls Mr. Salama. “A rating lowered by 10% means a turnover reduced by 30%.”
The owner, who finds no trace in his files of dissatisfied customers, asks Google for their identities, which refuses. Mr. Salama then sued the firm for summary proceedings (an accelerated legal procedure) in order to force Google to disclose the names, which was done on June 21, 2022 by the Dijon Court of Appeal.
Google is slow to rectify
Contacted by Mr. Salama, the dissatisfied “customers” admitted to having never used the castle’s services. In fact, they were passing nearby and received a “push” on Google Maps, a notification inviting them to broadcast a note of the castle, but without asking them if they had visited it.
Google removes the disputed notes. But “it took three to four years to have them removed while it takes 15 seconds to click and send a false notice,” he told AFP. This does not “strictly” comply with the obligation of the Law for Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN). This French text, which transposes a European directive, requires the “prompt” removal of any illicit notice. Additionally, the two “fake” reviews have since reappeared. And 15 new ones appeared.
“It’s a massive problem, much worse than most people know,” says Kay Dean. In 2025, Google itself indicated that it will remove 292 million fake reviews. According to CQ Researcher (an American reference analysis publication, editor’s note), up to 45% of comments on the Internet are considered to come from people who have not tried a product or service,” she adds.
“Completely perverse” system
However, “more than 80% of customers will consult Google to get an idea of the services,” recalls Frédéric Hopgood, lawyer for Château de Balleure. “And Google is incentivizing that. He wants reviews, fake or real, because they attract publicity. It’s completely perverse,” he accuses.
Google has implemented a procedure to verify reviews. But through artificial intelligence. “We are asking for a human moderator, not algorithms which are useless,” argues Mr. Hopgood, emphasizing that TripAdvisor or Booking have abandoned AI and have reviews checked by a person.
Monday, before the judicial court of Chalon-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire), Mr. Salama will fight “for hundreds of thousands of victims, the liberal professions, restaurants, hotels…”. The owner intends to “establish jurisprudence, like in Germany”, where the courts recently ordered Google to check reviews. “France is late,” he believes.
Legislation has been adopted, recognizes Kay Dean, notably the European Union’s “Digital Services Regulation” in 2022. But are they really applied? “I have not observed a real decline in fake reviews on Google. In fact, with the advent of artificial intelligence, we can expect it to get worse.”
