National News
Would Employment Screening Companies Go This Far?
December 26, 2013 posted by Steve Brownstein
Do any employment screening companies go this far?
John Nagle, who famously highlighted the massive problems with Craigslist spam a few years ago, alerts us to his latest report, showing how Google's regular listings are getting filled up with Google Places spam .
Apparently, Google integrated its Places offering into Google's regular search back at the end of October, and almost immediately various search engine optimizers (both the "white hats" and the "black hats") almost immediately realized that it was really easy to game the system: you just create a "business" at a fake, but real-sounding, address.
There are even apparently tools on the market that will help you do this. The report notes that this is apparently so effective that the search engine optimizers who usually play by the rules (the "white hat" SEOs) are even making use of it as well.
Of course, this has also opened up new business opportunities for some. According to the report, a convenience store chain in New York is effectively "selling" its address to others to use to get on Google in this manner.
Apparently, the more aggressive, less ethical "black hat" SEOs are seeking to take this to a new level, with new software on the way that will make it easier to bypass various attempts by Google to control this and, at the same time, use spamming engines to write fake "reviews" for these spammed "businesses."
