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Google files lawsuit against "SEO company" who promises 1st place


eoinfinnegan

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IT'S HAPPENING! 

No, it's not a Fiverr seller (yet?) but Google has filed a lawsuit based on the fact that the company was promising results, selling reviews and threatening companies with closure of their Google business/maps listing. 

Read the full details here:

https://searchengineland.com/google-g-verifier-lawsuit-389853

 

While it's not against Fiverr sellers directly, if I were one of those making the same false promises then I'd be changing my gigs immediately as I suspect Fiverr will likely remove all gigs like this. 

Once Google wins the case, Fiverr and every other platform are going to be terrified that they will be next and so they may finally clean up the SEO gig category. 

Bad news for people who do that, good news for buyers and honest sellers. 

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Having working in the web development field and working on SEO optimizations and such for years I think this is a wonderful news!

However, applied to Fiverr, isn't stated by the policies that each seller is responsable for its own content? I mean, Google could tell Fiverr that theres people thats not doing the work they promised to do, but I don't know if they could sue Fiverr as it works as an intermediarie marketplace.

In this case, I doubt that Google will go against sellers for suing and at most, they could ask Fiverr to close the accounts, unless they find a way to make Fiverr responsable for what their sellers offer.

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On 12/2/2022 at 4:17 PM, shalock said:

However, applied to Fiverr, isn't stated by the policies that each seller is responsable for its own content? I mean, Google could tell Fiverr that theres people thats not doing the work they promised to do, but I don't know if they could sue Fiverr as it works as an intermediarie marketplace.

In 2015 Amazon sued 1000 freelancers for offering to write fake Amazon reviews. As a result gigs that offered to write reveiws for Amazon sellers were banned. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-suing-people-who-want-to-be-paid-to-write-fake-reviews-2015-10?IR=T

So, it follows that google could sue freelancers that promise specific results.

Edited by vickiespencer
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4 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

In 2015 Amazon sued 1000 freelancers for offering to write fake Amazon reviews. As a result gigs that offered to write reveiws for Amazon sellers were banned.  

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-suing-people-who-want-to-be-paid-to-write-fake-reviews-2015-10?IR=T

So, it follows that google could sue freelancers that promise specific results.

I had not read that article yet, I found out about it through this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbyfhGHX0Vg ("Fake video testimonials: Inside the world of fake reviews" (CBC Marketplace) - YouTube ~ 22 minutes)

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11 hours ago, eoinfinnegan said:

if I were one of those making the same false promises then I'd be changing my gigs immediately as I suspect Fiverr will likely remove all gigs like this. 

 

10 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

In 2015 Amazon sued 1000 freelancers for offering to write fake Amazon reviews. As a result gigs that offered to write reveiws for Amazon sellers were banned. 

Indeed. High time to offer realistic and reasonably safe Gigs instead, for those who don't yet.

Now if only Google would sue people who claim they can translate anything from any language into any language, within 24 hours, be it a shopping list or War and Peace... 😉

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11 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

2015 Amazon sued 1000 freelancers for offering to write fake Amazon reviews. As a result gigs that offered to write reveiws for Amazon sellers were banned. 

If a big company like Amazon is willing to do it that's good new!  However writing fake reviews had a greater impact for Amazon (economically speaking) than some people offering fake SEO out there for Google .

I really hope that this big companies tale measures against this kind of shady business, that will be beneficial for all.

 

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On 12/2/2022 at 9:17 PM, shalock said:

However, applied to Fiverr, isn't stated by the policies that each seller is responsable for its own content? I mean, Google could tell Fiverr that theres people thats not doing the work they promised to do, but I don't know if they could sue Fiverr as it works as an intermediarie marketplace

Yeah, it wouldn't be a straightforward case, that's for sure but there's plenty of appetite among lawmakers to make big companies accountable for what's on their platforms. 

Think about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc and how much effort they are required to put in to reducing the illegal material on their platforms. Similarly, AirBnb, Lyft and Uber, when there is a problem with one of their hosts/drivers, they go all out to reduce their exposure to negative publicity and legal action. 

The excuse of "but we just facilitate people, we aren't responsible for what they do" just doesn't work any more. 

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3 minutes ago, eoinfinnegan said:

The excuse of "but we just facilitate people, we aren't responsible for what they do" just doesn't work any more. 

If only that could be applied to governments as well.  BTW Eoin, nice to see you.

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it wasnt about promising first place. It was how they promised it. Who knows how many people on here do this and you can't do that  and it is infuriating as you are working with one arm tied behind your back against these people. Some of them are very subtle about it but make implied promises and when you call them out on it you get "I didn't say that" .Others state outright you will be on the first page in weeks. thats not SEO and people are stating that for sites they don't even know the address for. Anyone who does seo will know how absurd that is. that is dishonest at best. 

If you are going to be providing services like this you need to be ethical, principled and have a moral compass that points in the right direction. Not in the direction of your bank account.

Google doesn't care less about stupid promises people make.. What they do care about is when they start impersonating google and making threats related to their products and making promises related to products. It has happened before but it hasn't been publicised as much.

This is incredibly frustrating as well. I was on the end of something like this with a business and it made headline press across the US a few years ago because of the end result. Basically a company I was working with (not on here) right near the top of the fortune 100 was threatened and there were consequences. very serious ones.

Going off at a tangent let me tell you how angry like this people make me and i really hope google sends them back to the stone age.  Not so long ago I worked with a customer who has a disabled son. because of their circumstances she couldn't work full time and had a website and was trying to make an income; person after person promised first page rankings and disappeared and stopped replying after doing the "work" and to say the situation was dire is an understatement. I worked with her free of charge for several months. Im not going to going into this here but there was a happy ending.

people like this making false promises and threats will fail eventually.  The truth will out. you cant sustain a business based on falsehoods and nonsense like this.

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