Multi-billion dollar staked tech giant Google has been slammed by a France based watchdog for providing misleading star ratings to hotels in France.
– French watchdog slams Google for misleading hotel ratings.
– Google to pay about 1.1 million euros as fine
– Google replaced the standard system with its own clarification system.
– DGCCRF conducted the investigation which found
– Google manhandling the star ratings
– Google agrees to replace its own starring system with the standard system.
Past Monday came out to be a shocking revelation for the tech giant as a French watchdog slammed Google for about $1.3 million or 1.1 million euros for misleading star ratings of hotels in France. Google France and Google Ireland have accepted such accusations and agreed to compensate the penalty for it.
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An investigation was carried out by the Directorate General for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud (DGCCRF) which found that Google had actually replaced the standard star rating clarification system with its own developed algorithm in September 2019. Since then, it has been categorizing and starring hotels based upon its algorithm.
The tech giant had applied its own developed algorithmic system for ratings of hotels which was put to use via Search and Google Maps.
The DGCCRF investigative probe had revealed that the tech giant Google had switched from the standard classification system of rating the public tourist board with an alternate star rating system developed by its own algorithmic criteria.
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A Google official took to the media that they had now settled and come to an agreement with the DGCCRF and had promised to make the necessary changes to only depict the official star rating for hotels in France through Google Maps and its Search engine.
As quoted by the reporting French watchdog, this misleading act was particularly damaging and deceptive for consumers and users who avail the services of the tech giant and said that users were misled and deceived about the standard of services what they could expect when booking accommodation.
