14 ms·

TripAdvisor removed rape and injury warnings at Mexico resorts, tourists say

156 points by ilamont 9y ago

imglorp 9y ago
TA has a glaring conflict of interest here. They can't represent the interests of both the travel businesses and the travelers at the same time: the commission will win every time.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  Same problem with Yelp monetization.
  - dreamcompiler 9y ago
    Exactly. Yelp has become little more than a protection racket for restaurants. "Nice little bistro you got here. Be a shame if it got low Yelp reviews. Pay us $$$ and we'll make sure that doesn't happen." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs
- user5994461 9y ago
  Also, hotels have an interest in putting bad reviews and closing their competitors.
  - hatmatrix 9y ago
    But wouldn't an effective bad review be a seemingly real testimony that you were raped at their establishment?
- 2K17 9y ago
  The rule is to err on the PC side of things - works for Europe.
- goialoq 9y ago
  Until they drive away their customers with their bad reputation. Every sales operation has the same dilemma -- serve customers or fleece them?
generj 9y ago
This is horrifying behavior. I'm certainly not going to use TripAdvisor again. The most depressing part of this story is the sheer number of comments alleging sexual abuse TripAdvisor deleted. I was expecting this article to slim with about two to three allegations. The fact that USA Today could find so many people to corroborate this sort of behavior shows that TripAdvisor is making a deliberate choice to sexually and physically endanger their customers.
- AJ007 9y ago
  If Google penalized or delisted TripAdvisor, they would go out of business.
  - tacomonstrous 9y ago
    Would be very hard for them to do that without inviting serious antitrust scrutiny.
    - i_am_nomad 9y ago
      How, though? It doesn’t seem like they compete with TripAdvisor. Their “Google Reviews” product isn’t in the same class at all.
      - lepht 9y ago
        Google Trips seems pretty close to me: https://get.google.com/trips/ https://get.google.com/trips/
        notahacker 9y ago
        And their standard search/mapping product returns lists of hotels/attractions on a map with star ratings, unique and syndicated reviews, photos, opening times and availability & price with booking link.
      - user5994461 9y ago
jostmey 9y ago
TripAdvisor is probably paid money to promote businesses. I suspect that these warnings were automatically deleted by their servers and that TripAdvisor employees did not make a deliberate decision to endanger people. Still, this is terrible The problem is that people want everything for free. No one wants to pay for the news. No one wants to pay for reviews. Lots of people download stuff for free. Well, if you are not paying for it, you are not the consumer. You are the one being consumed. Maybe some savvy entrepreneurs can build a business model off of providing genuine reviews Edit: Maybe some clever person could create a decentralized, distributed review system, like bitcoin, but for online reviews
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- user5994461 9y ago
  TripAdvisor receives a commission on the bookings.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  It doesn't matter who's paying or not. If you lead people to believe it's an egalitarian review site - and burying caveats in some 20,000 word ToS contract doesn't count - then stealth-editing out bad information is deceptive, and deception is a form of fraud. The problem is not that people want everything for free. People were perfectly happy buying tourist guidebooks when they went somewhere and choosing accommodations or activities based on collected information from backpackers, tour guides etc. As in many other contexts, companies like TripAdvisor blew a hole in that market by offering what appeared to be free, instant, and open-source trip-sharing information, while quietly monetizing it in the background and using their monetization strategy to wreck any genuine open source competition. It's a business model we've seen deployed over and over again, and it's turning out to be a rather shitty one.
dreamcompiler 9y ago
This is a horrible situation and TA probably deserves a class-action lawsuit. That said, Mexico has become a dumpster fire and the old days of "just stay in the tourist areas and you'll be safe" are long over. I'd sooner vacation in North Korea than Mexico.
- jimmywanger 9y ago
  I think most of Mexico is ok, however I speak a bit of Spanish and keep a low profile (not flashing wealth, not showing off my new smartphone). Mexico is inexpensive and the weather is nice. I don't know what you mean by "dumpster fire". You gotta steer clear of the hot spots (such as Juarez) and just not get involved. Most people are super nice.
  - dreamcompiler 9y ago
    I used to go to Juarez regularly before it became a war zone. Then the common wisdom became "stay in the touristy areas." But over the past ten years, there have been several well-covered attacks in tourist towns on both coasts. I'm not saying you can't still have a good time, but there are just no low-risk places in Mexico any more, and the cops are not likely to be of much help unless your interests align with those of the drug cartels.
- com2kid 9y ago
  > That said, Mexico has become a dumpster fire and the old days of "just stay in the tourist areas and you'll be safe" are long over. I enjoyed my time in Mexico earlier this year. Mexico City was wonderful, everywhere I went in the downtown core felt safe, no different than Chicago or NYC. There were wonderful plazas, street musicians playing, and great food everywhere. Granted the cops every other block helped add to the feeling of safety. Parts of other cities felt sketchy, but then again parts of every city feel sketchy. (With a few exceptions, I've walked around Edinburgh randomly and everyplace I went was wonderful.)
jcslzr 9y ago
To me is sounds like somebody wants to put out the competition.
everybodyknows 9y ago
From the article: 'The company isn’t the same as a travel agency with experts personally advising and selling trips, he said. Travel agents have a legal duty to disclose information about travel destinations or resorts when they know about specific risks. If they don’t and travelers get injured, the travel agent can be held liable for “failure to warn.”' So one of TripAdvisor's competitive value-adds for advertisers is its ability to shield them from accountability for the horrific crimes occurring at their resorts.
cardiffspaceman 9y ago
The article has several spots where TripAdvisor is said to have deleted/not published a comment because they ruled it, "hearsay". I would like someone to comment on a) Who says TripAdvisor can tar a post with that brush anyway? b) Does this word mean what they think it means? Let's say, I went to a restaurant. I found huge nails in my salad. I talked to the maitre'd and he says, "there are no nails in this salad" It seems to me that the above account, according to how TripAdvisor seems to behave, would be labeled hearsay and rejected as a whole, because I attribute words to the maitre'd, who of course is not me. To me the account should be regarded as a first person account. Also to me, regardless of whether it meets the technical definition of hearsay, it is valuable if someone says, "My wife found nails in her salad." or "My wife said she found nails in her salad." If I wrote, "My wife overheard a customer telling the maitre'd that there were nails in his salad" would be over the line but if that was only an embellishment of a post you'd want to include it.
11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
There is a difference between alleging poor service or quality of accommodation, and, alleging a criminal act committed on the premises or by hotel staff. Trip Adviser likely must take down these posts because they allege criminal acts that in many cases are not proven in a court and therefore, Trip Adviser can be sued for libel by the hotel. If the crime is reported and charges are subsequently proven and the case is a matter of public record, then I'd say Trip Adviser is obligated to report that fact in some way. But that can take a long time, and I'd guess some guests don't report the crime to the local police at all. It's a terrible situation not just that someone is victimized, but that they cannot warn others and spare them. What is the solution? How can victims ensure that future guests are warned?
- DrScump 9y ago
  allege criminal acts that in many cases are not proven in a court ... which the media does all the time, often even before/without formal criminal charges being filed. I think they would be justified in removing such reviews with allegations uncorroborated by supporting police reports. But if there is an open criminal complaint or indictment, review removals about such a case looks improper.
- Malician 9y ago
  The story where someone spent a week getting their crime reported only to have the local police chief who was trying to help them murdered within weeks takes the cake. And the hotel refuses to help.

156 points by ilamont 9y ago

TA has a glaring conflict of interest here. They can't represent the interests of both the travel businesses and the travelers at the same time: the commission will win every time.

microcolonel 9y ago
Same problem with Yelp monetization.
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  Exactly. Yelp has become little more than a protection racket for restaurants. "Nice little bistro you got here. Be a shame if it got low Yelp reviews. Pay us $$$ and we'll make sure that doesn't happen." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs
user5994461 9y ago
Also, hotels have an interest in putting bad reviews and closing their competitors.
- hatmatrix 9y ago
  But wouldn't an effective bad review be a seemingly real testimony that you were raped at their establishment?
2K17 9y ago
The rule is to err on the PC side of things - works for Europe.
goialoq 9y ago
Until they drive away their customers with their bad reputation. Every sales operation has the same dilemma -- serve customers or fleece them?

generj 9y ago

This is horrifying behavior. I'm certainly not going to use TripAdvisor again. The most depressing part of this story is the sheer number of comments alleging sexual abuse TripAdvisor deleted. I was expecting this article to slim with about two to three allegations. The fact that USA Today could find so many people to corroborate this sort of behavior shows that TripAdvisor is making a deliberate choice to sexually and physically endanger their customers.

AJ007 9y ago
If Google penalized or delisted TripAdvisor, they would go out of business.
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  Would be very hard for them to do that without inviting serious antitrust scrutiny.
  - i_am_nomad 9y ago
    How, though? It doesn’t seem like they compete with TripAdvisor. Their “Google Reviews” product isn’t in the same class at all.
    - lepht 9y ago
      Google Trips seems pretty close to me: https://get.google.com/trips/ https://get.google.com/trips/
      - notahacker 9y ago
        And their standard search/mapping product returns lists of hotels/attractions on a map with star ratings, unique and syndicated reviews, photos, opening times and availability & price with booking link.
    - user5994461 9y ago

jostmey 9y ago

TripAdvisor is probably paid money to promote businesses. I suspect that these warnings were automatically deleted by their servers and that TripAdvisor employees did not make a deliberate decision to endanger people. Still, this is terrible The problem is that people want everything for free. No one wants to pay for the news. No one wants to pay for reviews. Lots of people download stuff for free. Well, if you are not paying for it, you are not the consumer. You are the one being consumed. Maybe some savvy entrepreneurs can build a business model off of providing genuine reviews Edit: Maybe some clever person could create a decentralized, distributed review system, like bitcoin, but for online reviews

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
user5994461 9y ago
TripAdvisor receives a commission on the bookings.
anigbrowl 9y ago
It doesn't matter who's paying or not. If you lead people to believe it's an egalitarian review site - and burying caveats in some 20,000 word ToS contract doesn't count - then stealth-editing out bad information is deceptive, and deception is a form of fraud. The problem is not that people want everything for free. People were perfectly happy buying tourist guidebooks when they went somewhere and choosing accommodations or activities based on collected information from backpackers, tour guides etc. As in many other contexts, companies like TripAdvisor blew a hole in that market by offering what appeared to be free, instant, and open-source trip-sharing information, while quietly monetizing it in the background and using their monetization strategy to wreck any genuine open source competition. It's a business model we've seen deployed over and over again, and it's turning out to be a rather shitty one.

dreamcompiler 9y ago

This is a horrible situation and TA probably deserves a class-action lawsuit. That said, Mexico has become a dumpster fire and the old days of "just stay in the tourist areas and you'll be safe" are long over. I'd sooner vacation in North Korea than Mexico.

jimmywanger 9y ago
I think most of Mexico is ok, however I speak a bit of Spanish and keep a low profile (not flashing wealth, not showing off my new smartphone). Mexico is inexpensive and the weather is nice. I don't know what you mean by "dumpster fire". You gotta steer clear of the hot spots (such as Juarez) and just not get involved. Most people are super nice.
- dreamcompiler 9y ago
  I used to go to Juarez regularly before it became a war zone. Then the common wisdom became "stay in the touristy areas." But over the past ten years, there have been several well-covered attacks in tourist towns on both coasts. I'm not saying you can't still have a good time, but there are just no low-risk places in Mexico any more, and the cops are not likely to be of much help unless your interests align with those of the drug cartels.
com2kid 9y ago
> That said, Mexico has become a dumpster fire and the old days of "just stay in the tourist areas and you'll be safe" are long over. I enjoyed my time in Mexico earlier this year. Mexico City was wonderful, everywhere I went in the downtown core felt safe, no different than Chicago or NYC. There were wonderful plazas, street musicians playing, and great food everywhere. Granted the cops every other block helped add to the feeling of safety. Parts of other cities felt sketchy, but then again parts of every city feel sketchy. (With a few exceptions, I've walked around Edinburgh randomly and everyplace I went was wonderful.)

jcslzr 9y ago

To me is sounds like somebody wants to put out the competition.

everybodyknows 9y ago

From the article: 'The company isn’t the same as a travel agency with experts personally advising and selling trips, he said. Travel agents have a legal duty to disclose information about travel destinations or resorts when they know about specific risks. If they don’t and travelers get injured, the travel agent can be held liable for “failure to warn.”' So one of TripAdvisor's competitive value-adds for advertisers is its ability to shield them from accountability for the horrific crimes occurring at their resorts.

cardiffspaceman 9y ago

The article has several spots where TripAdvisor is said to have deleted/not published a comment because they ruled it, "hearsay". I would like someone to comment on a) Who says TripAdvisor can tar a post with that brush anyway? b) Does this word mean what they think it means? Let's say, I went to a restaurant. I found huge nails in my salad. I talked to the maitre'd and he says, "there are no nails in this salad" It seems to me that the above account, according to how TripAdvisor seems to behave, would be labeled hearsay and rejected as a whole, because I attribute words to the maitre'd, who of course is not me. To me the account should be regarded as a first person account. Also to me, regardless of whether it meets the technical definition of hearsay, it is valuable if someone says, "My wife found nails in her salad." or "My wife said she found nails in her salad." If I wrote, "My wife overheard a customer telling the maitre'd that there were nails in his salad" would be over the line but if that was only an embellishment of a post you'd want to include it.

11thEarlOfMar 9y ago

There is a difference between alleging poor service or quality of accommodation, and, alleging a criminal act committed on the premises or by hotel staff. Trip Adviser likely must take down these posts because they allege criminal acts that in many cases are not proven in a court and therefore, Trip Adviser can be sued for libel by the hotel. If the crime is reported and charges are subsequently proven and the case is a matter of public record, then I'd say Trip Adviser is obligated to report that fact in some way. But that can take a long time, and I'd guess some guests don't report the crime to the local police at all. It's a terrible situation not just that someone is victimized, but that they cannot warn others and spare them. What is the solution? How can victims ensure that future guests are warned?

DrScump 9y ago
allege criminal acts that in many cases are not proven in a court ... which the media does all the time, often even before/without formal criminal charges being filed. I think they would be justified in removing such reviews with allegations uncorroborated by supporting police reports. But if there is an open criminal complaint or indictment, review removals about such a case looks improper.
Malician 9y ago
The story where someone spent a week getting their crime reported only to have the local police chief who was trying to help them murdered within weeks takes the cake. And the hotel refuses to help.