Times are changing – as reported by the BBC back in February this year (2020):
An Australian court has ordered Google to identify the person behind an anonymous bad review of a dentist.
BBC
and
Justice Bernard Murphy ruled that… …had grounds to pursue a defamation case and that Google was “likely to have or have had control of a document or thing that would help ascertain that description of the prospective respondent”.
Google My Business is a must for all businesses. However, it has not been without problems – bad (anonymous) reviews being one of them. But this ruling changes things.
Expect Google to start getting stricter about moderating reviews, and reviewers being more careful. Your Google My Business listing will become even more important and valuable.
Of course, outsourcing fake, crap reviews offshore with just increase, so there’s a constant whack-a-mole at play here as well.
Times are indeed changing. Bad reviews needs to be checked, too many bitter people out there.