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TripAdvisor, one of the world's largest travel evaluation sites, wants the world to know that it will not turn a blind eye to false reviews.
To make this point clear, the Needham, Massachusetts-based site has welcomed the nine-month jail sentence and $ 9,300 fine imposed on the owner of an Italian company that was providing reviews of hotels and restaurants.
The prison sentence, imposed by a court in the city of Lecce, in southern Italy, could be the first for anyone who would be surprised to write fake reviews online. The name of the owner has not been published because of US privacy policies.
Last week, TripAdvisor detailed how the company had spent several years investigating the company – PromoSalento – and handing evidence to Italian prosecutors.
"We see this as a landmark decision for the Internet," said Brad Young, vice president and associate general counsel for TripAdvisor, in a statement. sent to prison accordingly. "
When TripAdvisor digital investigators identified the comments as coming from PromoSalento, the site blocked, deleted or demoted the comments in the site's ranking. For the false comments that continued to appear, TripAdvisor indicated that it had posted a "red badge" on the list of products reviewed, indicating that the company was trying to manipulate its opinions.
The accusation comes four years after the Italian Competition Authority, a non-governmental watchdog group, fined TripAdvisor for failing to warn users that some critics might be wrong. TripAdvisor has appealed the fine and persuaded an Italian court to reverse the penalty.
"We appealed the original AIT decision because we felt it was unreasonable and we disagreed with its findings," TripAdvisor said in a statement.
To learn more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
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