Anyone can easily follow my whereabouts by looking at my Google reviews. This is a serious privacy risk that will deter users who value their privacy from leaving reviews.
The whole point of reviews is to inform others on your experience. If you’re uncomfortable with others knowing you’ve been somewhere, why are you giving reviews in the first place?
I disagree. I review when I have polarizing experiences (good OR bad), or when I want to show support for a business.
I think tying a review to your google account is also good, because anonymity on the internet is generally used by people to say things they wouldn't say in the real world, often in harmful ways.
>I think tying a review to your google account is also good, because anonymity on the internet is generally used by people to say things they wouldn't say in the real world, often in harmful ways.
You're not wrong, but this is also the argument politicians use to strip you of your privacy on behalf of corporations
Generally, no, you don’t. Reviews can absolutely be positive and if you had a good experience that’s just as much motivation to leave a review. But positive or negative, that doesn’t address the issue that reviews are meant to be seen by others. It’s the entire core concept of the process.
If that was true then reviews would generally be bad, but that doesn't seem to be the case. One example is IMDB (good large dataset) where the average rating is 6.8 (wish I knew the median, but couldn't find that number).
There is an option to not list your reviews on your profile. If you enable it people can still see that you wrote each review, but cannot find all reviews you made (unless they look at the reviews of every place in the world). Good enough for you?
Also, the main reason I'd like to hide my name in reviews is to hide my identity from the business owners. Retaliation happens and sometimes prospective customers deserve to know about your bad experience
OP means they want to leave anonymous reviews. Imagine a scenario where you want to hide your identity from the business owner, a family member, etc. A local school teacher is disincentivized from warning future customers to a local sex store not to purchase the dildos from there because they're overpriced.
Due to the real name policies I agree with other posters here. Don’t submit reviews. Don’t engage with any social media that requires you to use your real name that don’t have any privacy controls to limit who can see your posts.
This is the downside of social proof. Your review is less valuable without your identity tied to it. This is why I don’t do any reviews that might identify me.
You mean if you have a few reviews all concentrated in a small area "they" can identify you/where you live?
Otherwise reviews are not "time stamped", unless you write something like "I went there on the 28th of April, and ...", there is nothing telling when you were there (if ever at all).
I'd like to see what people have to say about local businesses that they wouldn't say with their irl identity, though. If you can't understand why someone wouldn't say certain things using their irl id, and how those things could be worthwhile info for you, then you are naive to the sins of this world
I don't remember when was the last time I used my real name on the Internet, apart from banking and job interviews. Maybe it was 2007? Why would anyone use their real name anywhere?
I did that when Yelp forced you to use a real name
TBF, Yelp didn't force anyone to use a real name, they ask for a first and last name. You can change it anytime, no validation on reality. I just changed mine to Ycom Hnews. The only friction is a nag:
Yelp is all about real people, real reviews. You can change your name, but keep in mind that thousands of people come to Yelp to find your useful, funny and cool reviews. Changing your name may make it harder for them to find and benefit from your opinionated opinions.