Last Friday I started the process of determining which moving company we should use for our pending move from Kitchener to London. I started on Google, of course, and what should I be presented with but a list of local movers that did not start with the giants in the industry (Allied, Atlas, etc) but with smaller, local ones that came with "User Reviews". I think the results were actually ranked by Google User Reviews .. the more (positive?) reviews, the higher the ranking, I'm not sure really. In any case as I hadn't heard of any of these small guys but they seemed to come with some very positive reviews, I decided to look at the reviews.

There were 14 reviews in the first one I went to, and they seemed to all use similar language to describe their experience ... different word order but same words and thoughts ... it was odd enough that it made me look deeper. Turns out that each of the reviewers happened to review a number of different moving companies, each with nearly identical positive reviews and each done on the same day. In other words, it was clear that these reviews were fake, likely paid for by one of those many "Make Money From Your Computer" spams that hit my email.

The feeling I got when I saw this was one similar to when I first saw the WWW in action using "Mosaic" on a SGI Indigo back in 1992 or so ... it was the beginning of the end of the Internet as I knew it then and this surely proves the end of useful public reviews for me at least. I've used user reviews to assist my purchases of goods and services I've no direct experience in it many times. I've never used them exclusively, of course, I have a subscription to Consumers Reports and use it for all major purchases, but anecdotal evidence has played a role in many of my purchases.

But as clearly as the offers of money from wealthy, dead Nigerians are bad examples of attempted scams, so too are these reviews obviously fake whose only value for me tend to the exact opposite of what they had hoped for. I was looking for a viable alternative to the big boys but I ran away from these particular companies as fast as I could; but more than that, I realized that even the small amount of credibility I had been putting into online reviews must now be removed ... they are untrustworthy sources and clearly now Google is complicit in perpetuating a fraud upon us all. I can't honestly believe that I am the first person to notice this so I can't give Google a pass, they must know this is going on; through their search engine ranking methodology, Google plays an active not passive role.

The true utility of the Internet has been decreasing since the introduction of Social Networking, there is far too much information coming from far too many people for anybody to keep up with. Filters both technical and personal, are used by us all. We limit what we see by placing automatic filters in place (eg only my friends' posts) and we use bits of information from the posting itself to use of own brains as filters (eg not interested in tweets about food). User Reviews is one of the filters we are encouraged to use, and they offer the promise of being really good, valuable filters but now it is clear that they can no longer live up to their promise and must be ignored.

As an owner and provider of web sites, I know all too well that the comments attempted to be inserted in most postings are utterly bogus, simply attempts to insert URLs into external web sites so that Google (and other search engines) will increase their page ranking. My web sites are not the big popular sites that Facebook et al are and so the ratio of good to bogus posts is very poor ... like 1:250 or so, if I actually allowed the postings to be displayed I'd be overrun with unrelated crap.

I know how to fix this, the GATE Trust System is one method, but the public is not yet ready ... facebook proves that identity is all that is required, just having to actually identify yourself seems deterrent enough, or close anyway. But that price, the loss of privacy, is pretty high as well; free is too low a price but would I pay for facebook? No, probably not.

One is led inevitably to understand that Social Media / Social Networking is bullshit, that for every poster taking it seriously there are 10 using it for less than honest means. People do not provide an honest depiction of thier life on facebook anymore than Leave It To Beaver was an honest depiction of life in the 50's .... the only honesty comes with crap, I'm sure the meal just eaten or wine just drunk was good (though I still don't give a shit) but anything of import must be read with a large grain of salt.

I'm not the first to rant about this, I'll not be the last either I'm sure, but rant I had to do for this is a change I wish didn't occur.