Probably behind a paywall for another month, and in German…
The reporter team from heise’s c’t magazine spotted a restraunt in Hannover, where they work, being advertised as Kotz Alanya Gammelfleisch (“Puke Alanya rotting meat”). They thought it was a joke at first, but looked closer and when they zoomed in, underneath the advert to Puke Alanya was a real restraunt Öz Alanya. They went and visited the restraunt and found out that the food is actually fine.
The spoke with the owner and he has already engaged a lawyer about the problem, but both Google, who displays the ad and Lieferando (the German food delivery service, owned by the Dutch multi-national Just Eat Takeaway), who took out the ad, both said it has nothing to do with them.
Research by Just Eat and Google came to the conclusion, that it must have been a faked profile - someone can add a profile for a restraunt or other location (doctor’s surgery, store etc.) with a valid name, then, once Google has accepted the profile, they go back and change the name of the profile with the changed name - for some reason the automated system that checks the name changes didn’t flag up “Kotz” (puke) or “Gammelfleisch” (rotting meat) as being problematic…
Both parties say that it is regrettable, but it has nothing to do with them. But Google also won’t give any information about who actually made the profile.
Edit: To clarify, someone put up the fake profile on Google Maps and Google failed to take it down, even though it was defamatory, and Liferando/Just Eat Takeaway found the profile with their automated system for the address of one of their partners and paid to promote it. The lawyers for heise said that if people are hit by such campaigns, they need to go after the person(s) who created the profile, they probably can’t do anything against Google or the company that paid for the promotion.