Plaintiff Challenges Google's 'Misleading' Process for Reporting Fraudulent Maps Info

Donald Friend sued Google in U.S. District Court for Northern California, seeking to halt its “complex and misleading system and practices” involving businesses advertised on Google Maps, said his Thursday complaint (docket 5:24-cv-03571) in the San Jose court.

The Orlando, Florida, pro se plaintiff alleged that some Google product experts (GPEs) manage and promote fraudulent business listings in exchange for compensation and “prevent relevant negative information about the listings they represent” from reaching Google. The tech company “ignores this behavior while GPEs leverage their internal Google relationships and abuse the trust and authority given to them” by the company “for their own profit,” said the complaint.

This activity “impacts thousands of local businesses nationwide” and causes “unmeasurable financial damage,” alleged the complaint. Friend is an investor in a Florida business seeking to stop Google and its agents’ “willful, fraudulent conduct” and the harm it causes to him, consumers “and all local business owners.”

Google Search and Google Maps contain profiles with details of businesses and service providers that consumers can use to find street addresses, hours, website addresses, phone numbers and reviews, the complaint noted. Google’s profiles are important to business owners for attracting and keeping customers, and it’s important that the information is “authentic and accurate,” the complaint said.

Google offers business owners options for completing the verification process to become the owner of their "Google My Business” profile, said the complaint. Some merchants request a postcard with a verification code that Google sends to their physical location; others choose to receive a phone call or video call with a Google employee, during which the business can “confirm its legitimacy by displaying identifying features like sales inventory, tools of the trade, or a physical storefront,” the complaint said.

Business owners can choose to be designated as physically present and able to receive walk-in customers, a service-area business or a hybrid, said the complaint. Google describes a service-area business as one that visits or delivers to customers directly but doesn't serve customers at its business address. Physical locations close to the search results “appear more prominently,” the complaint alleged, asserting that many service-area or hybrid businesses “claim a physical location” for that reason.

Appearing with a physical location boosts the “inbound organic leads received,” which “incentivizes” service-area businesses to claim that a profile is a physical location that can receive customers “when in fact it is a home, an unstaffed office, or simply an address of another (unrelated) business used to trick Google into thinking there is a physical location,” alleged the complaint. The potential benefit of inbound leads from Google Maps creates a “high and ripe” financial incentive to commit fraud, alleged the complaint. GPEs are able to “exploit this incentive to promote their services and push forward noncompliant locations for the benefit of their paid customers,” it said.

Consumers who want to report fraudulent listings have to report through Google Maps or complete a business redressal complaint, said the suit. After about a week, a user can “escalate the problem to the Google My Business Community,” moderated by GPEs, who “escalate cases to Google as they deem fit.” Consumers can’t communicate with Google “except through a GPE who claims to be a volunteer, doesn’t work for Google, and has sole discretionary power as to the outcome of the complaint,” it said. Google “is clearly not doing enough to protect local businesses from fraud, lacks checks and balances, and its employees are corrupt,” it said.

GPEs have direct access to Google, with an intended purpose to assist users, the complaint said, but some “misuse their authority to help clients promote fake, noncompliant, or fraudulent listings in exchange for money.” In some cases, when users report “damaging information,” the GPEs “silence dissenting reports, close cases prematurely, and collaborate with other GPEs to manage reports in a way that benefits them,” the complaint alleged. GPEs can use their connections with Google employees to reinstate clients’ profiles “if damaging information reaches a Google reviewer and results in a profile suspension,” it alleged: “This corruption is widespread and deep-rooted.”

The complaint identified Sterling Sky, a local search engine optimization company, as having four employees who are GPEs working “to protect their clients’ fraudulent practices from being reported to Google” and to “skirt the Google system.” Friend has notified Google “in detailed written descriptions” twice of the “massive abuse of authority” by Sterling Sky and its employees, but the defendant has “ignored the notifications to date,” it said. The plaintiff had “no alternative” but to file a complaint and seek an injunction “to protect businesses” from the fraudulent activities of GPEs that violate Google’s terms of service, it said.

Friend asserts claims of breach of contract, false advertising and violation of the California Business & Professional Code. He seeks orders requiring Google to permanently enjoin and terminate Google’s GPE program; provide a “transparent reporting mechanism” for businesses and users wanting to follow up on reported fraudulent listings; and establish penalties for fraudulent business listings. He also seeks compensatory damages and pre- and post-judgment interest. Google didn't comment.