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"A number of positive reviews for this business originated from the same IP address. Our automated recommendation software has taken this into account in choosi

"A number of positive reviews for this business originated from the same IP address. Our automated recommendation software has taken this into account in choosing which reviews to display, but we wanted to call this to your attention because someone may be trying to artificially inflate the rating for this business." Ok the reviews were obviously fake if they came from the same IP. Seems highly unlikely that several people from the same building would have just happened to use the same law firm and all write glowing 5 star reviews. I think that all review sites should require some sort of verification from a reviewer that you actually were a customer of the business.

twblalock 7y ago
There is a little bit of a problem with that. I used to work at a company that did review aggregation and analytics. Car dealerships were among our most important customers. One dealership decided that they would set up a kiosk and ask customers to write reviews on the spot. A lot of them did. These reviews all came from the same IP address because they were written at the dealership's kiosk, and a few review sites decided they were all fake and deleted them. It was difficult explaining to those customers that their reviews looked fake, even though they were not. At the same time, there were probably some other dealerships where the salespeople were writing reviews and pretending to be customers.
- Cyclone_ 7y ago
  True there are some places that do that, but I think it's probably not a good practice to ask a customer to write a review while you're watching them on premise. There just needs to be awareness that that sort of thing is not OK.
sandworm101 7y ago
>> A number of positive reviews for this business originated from the same IP address. That was once a reasonable red flag, but IP addresses a so shared these days that it is expected that many come from the same address. Just think of how many restaurant reviews are submitted via the reviewed restaurant's own wifi, the same IP used by its employees. It is not unreasonable to believe that at least some reviews for a law firm would come from its own systems. If I were sitting in the lobby, waiting for my lawyer who is always late, I might submit a review via her guest wifi network.
- Cyclone_ 7y ago
  Far more preferable though to delete some legitimate reviews than to have a fake one go through. As the consumer that would definitely be my preference. You won't create a perfect system, but as long as most fakes are filtered out and some legitimate ones are deleted that's much more ideal than not being able to guard against fakes.
repiret 7y ago
Where I live, two fixed wireless ISPs have about 75% of the market. One offers only NAT, while the other offers only NAT on all but their most expensive plans. So in my area, 75% of the internet traffic comes from just two IP addresses. Moreover, because there's only one backhaul provider, those two ISPs, the county offices, the hospital, the public library and the schools all have traffic originating from a smallish set of addresses in the same AS. Probably the same class C, but I can't say that for sure. Reviews coming from the same IP is a useful signal for detecting fraud, but it certainly shouldn't be considered proof positive.

twblalock 7y ago

There is a little bit of a problem with that. I used to work at a company that did review aggregation and analytics. Car dealerships were among our most important customers. One dealership decided that they would set up a kiosk and ask customers to write reviews on the spot. A lot of them did. These reviews all came from the same IP address because they were written at the dealership's kiosk, and a few review sites decided they were all fake and deleted them. It was difficult explaining to those customers that their reviews looked fake, even though they were not. At the same time, there were probably some other dealerships where the salespeople were writing reviews and pretending to be customers.

Cyclone_ 7y ago
True there are some places that do that, but I think it's probably not a good practice to ask a customer to write a review while you're watching them on premise. There just needs to be awareness that that sort of thing is not OK.

sandworm101 7y ago

>> A number of positive reviews for this business originated from the same IP address. That was once a reasonable red flag, but IP addresses a so shared these days that it is expected that many come from the same address. Just think of how many restaurant reviews are submitted via the reviewed restaurant's own wifi, the same IP used by its employees. It is not unreasonable to believe that at least some reviews for a law firm would come from its own systems. If I were sitting in the lobby, waiting for my lawyer who is always late, I might submit a review via her guest wifi network.

Cyclone_ 7y ago
Far more preferable though to delete some legitimate reviews than to have a fake one go through. As the consumer that would definitely be my preference. You won't create a perfect system, but as long as most fakes are filtered out and some legitimate ones are deleted that's much more ideal than not being able to guard against fakes.

repiret 7y ago

Where I live, two fixed wireless ISPs have about 75% of the market. One offers only NAT, while the other offers only NAT on all but their most expensive plans. So in my area, 75% of the internet traffic comes from just two IP addresses. Moreover, because there's only one backhaul provider, those two ISPs, the county offices, the hospital, the public library and the schools all have traffic originating from a smallish set of addresses in the same AS. Probably the same class C, but I can't say that for sure. Reviews coming from the same IP is a useful signal for detecting fraud, but it certainly shouldn't be considered proof positive.