You could almost hear the corporate sigh of relief halfway around the world. An Italian court overturned the €500,000 fine slapped on TripAdvisor. That prior judgement had been issued because TripAdvisor failed to warn its users that some opinions on its site are fake.
"TripAdvisor never asserted that all the opinions were real, even mentioning that verification was impossible and to consider the trend rather than each comment one by one," the administrative court ruling stated.
Italy's hotel and restaurant trade association, Federalberghi, was (not surprisingly) disappointed in the court ruling. Federalberghi cited the recent case of a phantom restaurant leaping to the top of the rankings in one month thanks to fake comments.
Many of us visit TripAdvisor when planning our travels because we find useful information at the site. Obviously some people lie, and that includes people on TripAdvisor. It's also true that if a group of people wanted to sabotage a company, TripAdvisor offers them a tool to do so.
I personally find the TripAdvisor reviews left by experienced travelers (those with lots of posts and feedback) to be helpful. I ignore most of the rest.
More on this story on The Local at this link.
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