Google, Yellowbook, and Ziplocal, are being
sued for violating U.S. and state laws, specifically, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act, or RICO, and the Lanham Act.
Plaintiff, Baldino’s Lock and Key Service, Inc., a family-owned and
operated locksmith business serving the Northern Virginia, Maryland and
Washington, DC, area since 1961, has filed a lawsuit against Google, Yellowbook, and Ziplocal,
to remove fraudulent locksmith listings from their search results. “My
company has seen an $8.4 million decrease in revenue since search engines
emerged as the go-to for consumer research,” says Mark Baldino, President and
CEO of Baldino’s Lock and Key. “The presence of false online search results is
devastating not only to my business, but consumers and companies nationwide.”
U.S. District Court, Eastern District
of Virginia, Alexandria Division, Case No.: 1:14-CV-636-CMH-TCB SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT
FOR DAMAGES, DECLARATORY JUDGMENT, AND PERMANENT INJUNCTION FEDERAL LAW
VIOLATIONS INCLUDING RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATION ACT, AND
LANHAM ACT VIOLATIONS seeks damages and injunctive relief,
alleging:
- The Defendants deliberately mislead consumers by publishing false information with prior knowledge that the information is deceptive.
- They saturate requests for information with false listings to inflate the cost of advertising for legitimate businesses.
- They cause direct monetary damages to businesses and consumers that depend on search engines for factual information.
- They fail to screen out listings placed by criminal enterprises before publishing the listings online.
- Search engines and directories proactively clutter search results with false listings, forcing legitimate companies to pay a premium for Search Engine Optimization and priority placement benefiting them.
- Fraudulent listings numbering at times in excess of a thousand in the area serviced by Baldino’s make it nearly impossible for honest companies to be found near the top of search results or on the map locations.
- Just one false listing can cost a legitimate business thousands of dollars.
Not one Internet search engine can
claim their search results or directories are not seeded with many phony
listings. Google and the other search engines knowingly present these
fraudulent listings to consumers making them appear as valid companies in order
to create fictional online business competition. This deceptive behavior costs the service
businesses billions of dollars in lost market share nationwide as the odds of
them being selected is greatly reduced. In order to compensate they must pay
the search engines for favorable placement just to be seen. As intended, this
practice gains revenue for the search engines. All non-factual
listings must be removed and damages should be paid to those businesses that
have been victimized. In the future, all listings must go through stringent
verification procedures
before being published. We need only the truth on the Internet.
This deceptive behavior also misleads the consumer into
selecting an unqualified locksmith who many times charges more money than
originally promised. And how is the consumer hurt? Imagine
you locked yourself out of your car on a rainy night. Luckily, you have your
cell phone. You run a Google search for “locksmith nearby.” Plenty of listings,
map locations show up, but most are illegitimate companies. The majority of
business names are fictional; the address listed is false, but unfortunately
the phone number works. The hoax is
complete when the search engines present them as real entities. Online
locksmith scammers advertise business addresses that don’t exist and prey on
innocent consumers desperate to be rescued in a moment of need. Furthermore,
scammers often misquote over the phone, raise job prices upon arrival, and are
unqualified to perform the job. Would you trust an unverified locksmith to
rescue you alone on a dark rainy night? This behavior isn’t just true for
scammer locksmiths alone; it impacts all goods and services advertised on the
Internet. Every business advertised in an online directory must be legally
verified to protect the consumer.
Can
the public, the media, and the justice system expose, enforce and correct this
problem? Should Google, other search engines, and online directories be allowed
to continue with this practice?
Read More:
https://www.fairtradelocksmiths.com/legal-battle/
Contact:
Mark Baldino
Office 703-550-0770 ex
3670
Cell 703-906-3154
E-mail mbaldino@baldinos.com
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