Google’s Local Guide program is a Yelp Elite like program at huge, worldwide scale. Anyone can become a guide and their is are gamefication levels that create incentives for involvement. There are also contests and give aways to incentivize continued involvement of the guides.

The newest Local Guide give away of L’Oréal professional products strikes the wrong chord with me.

Lets for a moment ignore that the give away is clearly targeted at a certain demographic subgroup of guides. And let’s even ignore that the rules in the email and the rules on the web are different.¹

What really rings the wrong note for me is that it appears to be a paid ad unit and that Google is “selling” access to the Local Guides for gain. Even if that isn’t true it has the appearance of a conflict and certainly is great advertising for L’Oreal.

The people that “work” for Google creating a ton of content for their local products, whether it be photos, reviews, edits or whatever, deserve better than to become another ad target.

^{1. In the email it states:
From today until November 17, every high quality review you write on Google Maps gives you a better chance to win 1 of 21 prize packages from L’Oréal
However on the web it states:
Review salons you’ve visited anywhere in the world for a chance to win one of 21 prizes}