Google has filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Ethan QiQi Hu and his company, Rafadigital, accusing him of creating 350 fraudulent Business Profiles and 14,000 fake reviews for an alleged business verification service for Google services.
The tech giant said it has already removed the allegedly fake content from its services, yet is filing the lawsuit to prevent similar content in the future.
"Our lawsuit targets a bad actor who perpetrated a coordinated campaign to deceive consumers and business owners by fraudulently attempting to manipulate our services for small businesses," alleges a Google announcement.
"As our lawsuit shows, this bad actor posted more than 350 fraudulent Business Profiles and tried to bolster them with more than 14,000 fake reviews. It then attempted to sell information about consumers who had been lured in through such false claims."
"While we detected and removed this deceptive content, we're taking proactive legal action to stop this bad actor from scamming other platforms and to protect our users."
In 2022, Google says it detected over 20,000,000 attempts to create fake Business Profiles, which illustrates the scale of a problem that the FTC previously said costs the average American internet user $125 per year.
Google business verification
Business Profiles on Google are company listings that appear across Google's services, including Search, Maps, and YouTube, giving users a quick snapshot of a business and its reputation.
These listings contain the company's main address, phone number, and operating hours, include customer reviews, and may also feature images from the owner or visiting clients.
According to the lawsuit that Google submitted to the U.S. District Court of North California, Hu and companies GMBEye and Rafadigital allegedly set up a complex scheme to manipulate business listings on Google to mislead consumers for profit.
"Over the past two years, [...] the Defendants have abused Google products to create fake online listings for businesses that do not exist, and to bolster them with fake reviews from people who do not exist," reads the complaint.
"[The] Defendants sell these listings, and the inquiries from confused consumers who are lured in by them, to individuals and entities looking to promote their businesses on Google platforms."
"Defendants deceive these small business owners too, making unsubstantiated and impossible claims about their ability to guarantee a favorable position in Google's search results and implying preferential treatment or access with respect to certain Google processes."
In short, Google alleges that Hu and his team created fake businesses on Google, boosted them with fictitious reviews, and convinced small business owners to purchase these profiles for $1,000 and apply for a name switch, hoping to enjoy a more prominent position in Google search results.
Hu is said to have used various props relevant to the company during the verification call with Google's agents to verify these dummy business profiles, convincing them they were speaking to the owner of a small company in the declared sector.
Additionally, Google says GMBEye's website promoted Google Business verification services that supposedly bypassed Google's standard procedures and even promised the capability to get any business at the top position in Google Map searches.
"Rafadigital's advertising makes dramatic and unachievable promises, such as that Defendants will ensure that a website "shows up #1 on Google" and that "[w]e rank your business on Google My Business (GMB) to be #1 on map searches so you can out-perform local competitors," reads Google's lawsuit.
Google asks the court that the defendants be banned from advertising or selling business verification services or creating fake profiles and requests the jury to decide on awarding the appropriate damage compensation.
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