All the details here : http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30583483

Yermanee

I do like Trip Advisor, but you have to be really careful with the reviews. You just never know what's true and what's not. Or, what's relevant to you or what's not.

I see lots of negative reviews for hotels here in Thailand because the receptionists don't speak English. Not a big deal for me...

There are three things wrong with TripAdvisor:

1) They issue "awards" in return for cash without actually inspecting the venue.

2) Many reviews are fake/biased.

3) Many reviews are written by idiots; some are so stupid that they even get the venue completely wrong and review a different place with a similar name.

Apart from that it's OK.

If you are interested in a particular hotel or venue, just drill down a bit and read several reviews, not just the prominently displayed ones. You'll usually get a pretty accurate picture that way.

Don't overlook the fact that Italy is also the place where they prosecuted geologists for not predicting a large earthquake several years ago.

Edited December 24, 201411 yr by dddave

TA seems particularly unreliable in foreign countries. But they have a way to correct and update reviews, not that it seems many do.

I am a hotel owner, and several times I received e-mail offers for so and so many well written reviews per month for US$XX per month. Once an e-mail came from somebody claiming to be an ex TA employee.

I have heard of cases of hotels being blackmailed by a customer: If you don't allow me an early check-out, I'll write a negative review on TA.

A restaurant/hotel coming up as number 1, is often a place which just has a small number of rave reviews. If your place has a lot of reviews, it is just about impossible to be very high up on the list, because Inevitably you also get the odd negative review. Should be possible for TA to work out an algorithm to nullify this effect.