A Russian marketing agency has offered to help restaurants in cities hosting the soccer World Cup use fake reviews to bump up ratings on review site TripAdvisor, the agency’s owner has confirmed.
Marketing company Bacon Agency says it can circumvent TripAdvisor’s algorithm for detecting fraudulent posts and publish reviews in foreign languages ahead of an influx of fans from abroad.
“What can you do if no Serbs and no Swedes have ever been to your venue and left a review?” Bacon Agency asks, in a brochure received by a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, which hosts Egypt and Uruguay in their first round matches.
“You write it yourself!” the agency says.
For 35,000 rubles (Dh2,000), the agency promises a spot in TripAdvisor’s top 10 list. “We are offering to help tourists find you, and to leave their money specifically with you,” it writes.
“We oppose any attempt to manipulate a business’ ranking,” TripAdvisor said. “Our dedicated investigations team is proactive and extremely effective at catching those trying to solicit fake reviews for money”.
Fake reviews are widespread, but it is unusual for a company involved in the practice to discuss it so openly, or to link it explicitly to a sports event.
The World Cup has created lucrative opportunities for businesses in the 12 host cities hoping to benefit from well-to-do foreign fans at a time when Russians are feeling the pinch from a fragile economy and Western sanctions.
Contacted by Reuters, Bacon Agency confirmed it had offered the service, but said it only wanted to act as the middleman between restaurants and freelancers posting fake reviews.
“We understand that all this is illegal in the sense that TripAdvisor is against it,” said Bacon Agency’s owner Roman Baldanov.
“We were just testing this niche, because we see high demand. It’s not because we’re bad guys who came in and said, look, you’ve got to start swindling...All restaurants know that reviews are ordered, and many use this service,” Baldanov said.
He said nobody had yet taken up his offer. “The response we got was: thanks, but we are already doing this ourselves”.
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Read more:
In pictures: All 12 Russia 2018 World Cup stadiums
Lowdown: Where to watch 2018 Fifa World Cup matches in the UAE and kick-off times
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Reuters tracked restaurants in six World Cup host cities over two months, noting an uptick in suspicious-looking posts.
An event like the World Cup increases incentives to post such reviews, said Stanford University’s Jeff Hancock, an expert in detecting fake reviews.
“Any time you start seeing reviews come in all at once, look sort of similar, have the same kind of language, then alarm bells should start going off,” Hancock said.
At least six restaurants in the TripAdvisor top 30 list for Kaliningrad, which will host Croatia and Nigeria, appeared to fit this description.
Peperonchino, a cafe serving Italian cuisine 20 minutes’ drive from the World Cup stadium, used to get around one review a week.
But two weeks ago reviews began to flood in - 45 in total - the majority from accounts with stock photos, created this year, and rating the cafe five stars. Peperonchino rose from 28th place to 2nd on TripAdvisor’s list.
Sister cafe Peperonchino 2 also received a flood of reviews in the past fortnight, also 45 in total, 32 from such accounts.
“All our reviews are real and are left by our customers,” Peperonchino said. “It’s just we have a big loyalty system, a mobile phone app, and so on”.
In a strategy document seen by Reuters, Bacon Agency explains how to avoid detection by TripAdvisor.
“The issue is that TripAdvisor has developed algorithms which monitor user activity and when they spot an attempt to manipulate the numbers, they sanction the venue,” the agency writes.
To trick the algorithm, fake reviews are published using different IP addresses, devices, browsers and operating systems. Each account has a “back story” of earlier posts.
The reviews will be “full of real details about the menu and decor, as well as ‘real’ photographs, which we will ask you to take”.
Sour%20Grapes
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Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: seven-speed
Power: 620bhp
Torque: 760Nm
Price: Dh898,000
On sale: now
The Bio
Ram Buxani earned a salary of 125 rupees per month in 1959
Indian currency was then legal tender in the Trucial States.
He received the wages plus food, accommodation, a haircut and cinema ticket twice a month and actuals for shaving and laundry expenses
Buxani followed in his father’s footsteps when he applied for a job overseas
His father Jivat Ram worked in general merchandize store in Gibraltar and the Canary Islands in the early 1930s
Buxani grew the UAE business over several sectors from retail to financial services but is attached to the original textile business
He talks in detail about natural fibres, the texture of cloth, mirrorwork and embroidery
Buxani lives by a simple philosophy – do good to all
Specs
Price, base: Dhs850,000
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 591bhp @ 7,500rpm
Torque: 760Nm @ 3,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 11.3L / 100km
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Previous men's records
- 2:01:39: Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) on 16/9/19 in Berlin
- 2:02:57: Dennis Kimetto (KEN) on 28/09/2014 in Berlin
- 2:03:23: Wilson Kipsang (KEN) on 29/09/2013 in Berlin
- 2:03:38: Patrick Makau (KEN) on 25/09/2011 in Berlin
- 2:03:59: Haile Gebreselassie (ETH) on 28/09/2008 in Berlin
- 2:04:26: Haile Gebreselassie (ETH) on 30/09/2007 in Berlin
- 2:04:55: Paul Tergat (KEN) on 28/09/2003 in Berlin
- 2:05:38: Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 14/04/2002 in London
- 2:05:42: Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 24/10/1999 in Chicago
- 2:06:05: Ronaldo da Costa (BRA) 20/09/1998 in Berlin
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
PREMIER LEAGUE FIXTURES
Saturday (UAE kick-off times)
Watford v Leicester City (3.30pm)
Brighton v Arsenal (6pm)
West Ham v Wolves (8.30pm)
Bournemouth v Crystal Palace (10.45pm)
Sunday
Newcastle United v Sheffield United (5pm)
Aston Villa v Chelsea (7.15pm)
Everton v Liverpool (10pm)
Monday
Manchester City v Burnley (11pm)
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Company%20Profile
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
