By Stephanie Forshee
INDU S TRY SPOTLIGHT
Lawsuits fled by Edmunds and
Yelp against frms posting fake
reviews serve as another reminder
of the high-priced battle review
sites are waging to maintain their
infuence on consumers.
A FAKE
12
AUTO DE ALE R MONTHLY • SE P TEMBE R 2013
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/SARAPULSAR38
SPOTTING
Te eme
Te emergence of consumer review sites has
give ri
v
given rise to what one Yelp ofcial refers to
as the "c
as t "consumer deception industry." And in
rece months, Yelp and Edmunds have taken
c
recent m
step
e
steps to p
prevent their sites from becoming playg rou
o
grounds for fake reviews.
I lat
In late July, Edmunds f led a lawsuit against
Humankind Design Ltd., the parent company of
GlowingReviews.co. Te vehicle information site
claims the Friendswood, Texas-based company
was doing more than managing dealers' online reputations, charging the defendants with
registering more than 2,000 fake accounts on
Edmunds.com and attempting to post at least 76
fraudulent reviews on behalf of 25 dealerships
nationwide.
One month earlier, Yelp f led a similar
lawsuit against Timothy Catron, owner of
AdBlaze.com and BuyYelpReview.com. Yelp is
also seeking monetary damages from 50 yet-tobe-identifed defendants who allegedly utilized
the company's services to create fake reviews.
Ken Levin is general counsel for Edmunds.
He says the car-shopping site is not pursuing action against the dealers Humankind represented
because it would be difcult to prove whether
they were complicit with the scam. In one case,
he adds, the afected dealer claims he has never even heard of Humankind. "We don't really
know what the facts are," Levin says. "And that's
why we're not really accusing the dealers of anything, other than putting them on notice of the
situation."
UNVEILING DECEPTION
On Jan. 22, Edmunds identifed a review that
was "likely to be bogus." Almost two months
later on March 11, the company was able to connect Humankind with the additional fake reviews that began to pour in from the frm's 2,065
accounts. T is led to the legal action Edmunds
f led in a Texas court on July 23.