Blocking VPN likes?

[Steven1]

I'm developing a platform to promote local business services throughout the UK and wondered what you think of this.

I've added the ability for people to like a business page and the position of search results will be partially based on how many likes a page has. I know some businesses will try to cheat and therefore I am blocking the IP that created the business page from liking their own page but would like to further reduce any possible cheating.

I was thinking that businesses may try to use a VPN to circumvent the IP block. Would it be wise to block anyone using a VPN from liking a page, or would this serve to interfere with genuine likes?

[Ingolme]

The only reliable solution is to associate likes to an account. Google offers OAuth2 to be able to identify people by their Google accounts.

[Steven1]

Thanks for the reply.

I've made it open so you don't have to log in to leave a like; in fact there is no login for users, only for businesses for editing their pages/settings. The problem with Google accounts is not everyone has one.

I just wanted to know what people thought about blocking VPN likes as this should def. reduce the amount of cheating but I wanted to know the potential drawbacks.

 

[Ingolme]

I don't see any major drawback aside from how you would achieve that. I'm wondering how you would identify that a user came from a VPN.

Even without a VPN, the business owners may not necessarily always be operating from the same IP address. They might have a dynamic IP or they might be working from a different location.