TripAdvisor: Negative anonymous reviews by rival brands are policed by our community

TripAdvisor has said that its own community is the best defence against negative anonymous reviews posted by rival brands.

The travel site has pointed to a recent study that found that 64 per cent of respondents tend to ignore extreme comments when reading reviews, and said that it fights “fraud aggressively and are confident in our systems and processes we have in place.”

The firm told Mumbrella Asia: “We are against any attempts to submit fake reviews and are vigilant in our detection. Our community can and do also let us know if they see something amiss, and we act on every report we receive.”

TripAdvisor’s comments come in response to those made by the Asia boss of social marketing agency We Are Social, who said that the practice of brands astroturfing to harm the reputation of rivals is “not as rare as we’d hope”, using TripAdvisor as an example.