Google finally allows true-blue anonymous reviews?

[Phil Rozek]

I just noticed this:



Wondering whether Google is now letting people write Google reviews without using their real name or a nom de plume.

May be simply a matter of removing your first name and last name here - a URL I haven't seen before: https://aboutme.google.com

Is anyone else seeing anonymous reviews, or how to write them?

 

[pbarnhart]

Yes, but when you click on the "A Google User" and look at their profile it's not quite as anonymous. We have a lot of clients with these in their review stack - they seem to be all reviewers that have deleted their Google account

 

[James Watt]

I've seen those anonymous reviews too, but they never have a way to click through to a profile when I see them. When I've done digging (caught one in cache once when I was digging out of curiosity) and that one at least switched because the profile had been deleted, don't know if that's the only way you can have an anonymous review like that though.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@pbarnhart

Good catch. It appears to be as you say: Google won't let you simply erase your name or leave it blank, so the only way to leave "A Google User" review must be to delete your account.

Which I find troubling - not because I'm more concerned about reviewers' anonymity than the next guy is, but because Google is creating the online-reviews equivalent of burner phones.

 

[pbarnhart]

Its actually been going on for quite awhile - this is a former employee review of a business (not mine, but they are a client) that we took way up in Google. The review originally had a line "I am a former employee" and was removed. The second review - this one - had that line removed. The original review, which was screen-captured, did not constitute sufficient proof for Google to remove the review.

https://plus.google.com/114108174492334743523/reviews

 

[timcapper]

Its another painful addition to the their already flawed review system.