Google removed 3 million fake profiles from Maps last year

Google removed more than three million fake business profiles from Maps last year. The search giant makes this known after The Wall Street Journal published an article about fraud on Maps. Companies would post fake profiles to pretend to be close to a customer.

According to Google, more than 90 percent of fake profiles were removed before Maps users could see them. The search giant says 85 percent of profiles were removed using internal systems. More than 250,000 company profiles have been removed as a result of reports from users. Google says it has blocked more than 150,000 accounts that abuse Maps. That is an increase of 50 percent compared to a year earlier.

Google provides the numbers after The Wall Street Journal published an article about fraud on Maps. The newspaper describes in it that companies such as plumbers, for example, register multiple locations, in order to appear during searches as a company that is close to the customer. There are also fraudulent companies that take the name of an existing company and add their own telephone number to it, in order to win customers from competitors.

According to research by The Wall Street Journal, a search for a plumber in one part of New York resulted in 13 fake addresses among the first 20 results. Moreover, only two of the twenty companies were willing to make an appointment at the address in question. If companies map their location, they are required to receive customers at that address.

The problems with fraud on Google Maps are said to have increased in recent times, as Google has started to make more use of advertisements on the platform. By purchasing ads, companies appear at the top of the list in searches. For a fee, fraudulent companies can surface that way.