One of Ryan George’s videos explained one reason these reviews exist. Google used to have a pretty robust Local Guide designation for reviewers who were actively reviewing locations. They game-ified reviews and naturally some people wanted a high score. So, they would review things like parking lots and other places that are usually not ‘review-able’.
I still get notifications that say "your reviews are popular! Over 1200 people have viewed them. Can you fill in details about [some place I stopped in the parking lot to check the map]?”
I mean the comment is public and that your were at some location and searched stuff about it via Google is something they should know. Ideally they would not collect that too, but out of all the things they do this is more superficial and easily explained as a service. The real issue is ALL the invisible stuff they collect about you, sites you visit, what you do/look at there, … and then also use and sell that and not in any way to make things better for the user too.
I believe they had word count and photo/video buffs to the score of each review. Not saying that’s the case here, but the actual content of the review textbox didnt impact the final score in this Local Guides program.
One of Ryan George’s videos explained one reason these reviews exist. Google used to have a pretty robust Local Guide designation for reviewers who were actively reviewing locations. They game-ified reviews and naturally some people wanted a high score. So, they would review things like parking lots and other places that are usually not ‘review-able’.
I still get notifications that say "your reviews are popular! Over 1200 people have viewed them. Can you fill in details about [some place I stopped in the parking lot to check the map]?”
Subtle hint of how much data they’re collecting.
I mean the comment is public and that your were at some location and searched stuff about it via Google is something they should know. Ideally they would not collect that too, but out of all the things they do this is more superficial and easily explained as a service. The real issue is ALL the invisible stuff they collect about you, sites you visit, what you do/look at there, … and then also use and sell that and not in any way to make things better for the user too.
Doesn’t explain them leaving a nonsensical review like the inevitable march of time existing
They would have a review like “nice trees”
I believe they had word count and photo/video buffs to the score of each review. Not saying that’s the case here, but the actual content of the review textbox didnt impact the final score in this Local Guides program.