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If you are running a popular place, whether you like it or not, you'll end up on Google controlled listings. Unfortunately, there's little help for a non-tech s

by chdir 12y ago

If you are running a popular place, whether you like it or not, you'll end up on Google controlled listings. Unfortunately, there's little help for a non-tech savvy business owner to fix problems with listings or fake reviews or even removal of genuine reviews. This is an area where they need to be held accountable. If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business owners rather than community. Most web companies prefer the approach of 'act now, apologize later' or maybe never to garner users. I've had so many web services (including Facebook) create accounts using my email address without my approval (maybe because the other person used phone verification). Now if I want to claim back my email address on that web service, they put the burden on me to provide a photo ID. Using my email address is partially impersonating me because my contacts might have uploaded their address book and FB allows that willy nilly.

tedunangst 12y ago
If it's your email, can't you just send a password reset?
- chdir 12y ago
  With Facebook, no. My guess is that if you've verified with a phone number, they make it difficult to reset by an unverified email (they favor the fake user and assume that the email was entered incorrectly). Moreover, I don't want to take over someone's account if they've been ignorant about entering the email incorrectly. They still own the data. However I do report that I didn't create this account. Services like FB blacklist the email address in that case. As a result, I can't use that email in future without giving a photo ID (never gonna happen).
- BSousa 12y ago
  Not with facebook last time I tried. Had the same problem, someone used my email to create a facebook account and now I can't get it back without going through various loops that I honestly don't care about. I just put anything that is related to facebook to be automatically deleted and my friends know I hate FB and I'm not there, so if someone 'friends' them thinking it's me, I think only 2-3 people I know wouldn't suspect it.
true_religion 12y ago
The previous process used to go "if you're weilding this much power... you charge businesses to fix things for you".
Karunamon 12y ago
>If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business owners rather than community Could you elaborate why?
- chdir 12y ago
  The above article is an example of how Google unknowingly destroyed a 40 year old business that was being run by a 74 year old man who hadn't used internet. I've personally known business owners who struggle to figure out reputation management with Google listings. There's simply no systematic way to call up Google & fix things when things go wrong. We're talking about people's sole livelihood here. If there's a doubt about a listing, instead of assuming that crowd source data is correct, Google should have a clear laid out way for businesses to call up and set things right.

by chdir 12y ago

tedunangst 12y ago

If it's your email, can't you just send a password reset?

chdir 12y ago
With Facebook, no. My guess is that if you've verified with a phone number, they make it difficult to reset by an unverified email (they favor the fake user and assume that the email was entered incorrectly). Moreover, I don't want to take over someone's account if they've been ignorant about entering the email incorrectly. They still own the data. However I do report that I didn't create this account. Services like FB blacklist the email address in that case. As a result, I can't use that email in future without giving a photo ID (never gonna happen).
BSousa 12y ago
Not with facebook last time I tried. Had the same problem, someone used my email to create a facebook account and now I can't get it back without going through various loops that I honestly don't care about. I just put anything that is related to facebook to be automatically deleted and my friends know I hate FB and I'm not there, so if someone 'friends' them thinking it's me, I think only 2-3 people I know wouldn't suspect it.

true_religion 12y ago

The previous process used to go "if you're weilding this much power... you charge businesses to fix things for you".

Karunamon 12y ago

>If you are wielding so much power, you need to handle it responsibly and error in favor of business owners rather than community Could you elaborate why?

chdir 12y ago
The above article is an example of how Google unknowingly destroyed a 40 year old business that was being run by a 74 year old man who hadn't used internet. I've personally known business owners who struggle to figure out reputation management with Google listings. There's simply no systematic way to call up Google & fix things when things go wrong. We're talking about people's sole livelihood here. If there's a doubt about a listing, instead of assuming that crowd source data is correct, Google should have a clear laid out way for businesses to call up and set things right.