Google has filed a lawsuit against Ethan Hu, an alleged scammer who ran an elaborate scheme to flood Google’s search product with fake businesses and reviews. Hu and his co-conspirators allegedly created fake businesses and reviews, and then sold these fake listings to other businesses looking to promote their own services in Google’s search results.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, accuses Ethan Hu and 20 unnamed co-defendants of creating more than 350 fake business profiles with over 14,000 fake reviews since mid 2021. The fake profiles were sold or rented to real businesses who wanted to boost their search ranking or to other scammers who abused the fake listings.
Google is seeking damages and a permanent injunction against Hu and his co-conspirators. The lawsuit comes as Google faces increasing competition from other search engines, as well as the potential for low-quality AI-generated search results.
“Customers trust Google to provide authoritative and reliable results,” said Renny Hwang, Google’s head of litigation. “But that trust is lost if they spend money based on fake reviews.”
The lawsuit alleges that Hu and his co-conspirators created fake businesses and reviews by using a variety of techniques, including:
- Creating fake websites and social media profiles for the businesses.
- Using fake names and addresses for the businesses.
- Posting fake reviews on Google and other review sites.
- Paying people to write fake reviews.
Once the fake businesses and reviews were created, Hu and his co-conspirators allegedly sold them to other businesses looking to improve their search rankings. The businesses that purchased the fake listings were unaware that they were fake, and they often spent large sums of money on them.
Google is seeking damages for the harm that Hu and his co-conspirators caused to Google and its users. Google is also seeking a permanent injunction against Hu and his co-conspirators, to prevent them from continuing to engage in this type of activity.
The lawsuit is a sign that Google is taking steps to address the problem of fake businesses and reviews. Google has also taken steps to improve its ability to detect and remove fake businesses and reviews from its search results.
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