Steve Kaufer has written a strongly worded letter to owners of hotels, restaurants and other services to warn them of attempts at fraudulent activity on TripAdvisor.
The president and CEO of the user review giant says it wants to help owners combat "individuals, often masquerading as legitimate companies" that are working to extract money with practices to "distort the content available on TripAdvisor".
An official says there is no specific reason for sudden the letter from Kaufer, only that it felt "the timing was right" to communicate in this way as it knows owners want to understand its stance given recent media coverage about optimisation practices in general on the web.
There is also no evidence to say that such attempts at fraudulent activity have been successful.
The official adds:
"We know that hospitality businesses are sometimes approached by individuals or companies promising to manipulate their ranking or position on TripAdvisor by posting positive reviews or removing negative ones – they are known as optimisation companies and their practices are highly unethical and completely contradictory to everything we stand for at TripAdvisor."
Kaufer is urging any business owner to report such approaches to its fraud team. Many of the activities being offered are against the law, it says.
It is unclear at the moment if the letter was sent to every owner on the TripAdvisor database, or if it is specifically targeted at particular types of services, regions or cities.
Here is the letter in full:
NB:TripAdvisor image via Shutterstock.