A Google Groups member points us to some shady practices that a business is applying on Google Local. Apparently, a website registered nearly 100 "businesses" at local nightclubs even though they don't own the nightclubs. Their intentions are to take business away from the nightclubs themselves and to convince buyers that they should buy tickets from this business which apparently has some club associations as far as ticket sales are concerned. Naturally, these tactics are not ethical nor do they have any business (no pun intended) in Google Local.
Google is looking into it, they say, and they have been vigilant about spam fighting for quite some time. They will evaluate whether this site should be listed as representing these businesses and will probably remove them if it is deemed that they do not. (I'd recommend exclusion from the index for their shadiness, but that's just me.)
Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.
