Excerpt from PhocusWire
Google has agreed to pay a €1.1 million fine levied by authorities in France over misleading star ratings for hotels.
In 2019, complaints from hoteliers prompted France’s Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF) to launch an investigation into Google’s rating practices in its search engine and in Google Maps.
In a statement, the government agency says it automatically collected and analyzed the rankings of more than 7,500 hotels, comparing Google’s star rating with that of Atout France, the country’s Tourism Development Agency and only authorized provider of star ratings.
In a news release from DGCCRF (translated from French), the agency says its investigation found Google had replaced the official Atout France classification with one based on its own criteria.
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