How does Google even guarantee that those reviews are honest? Bob's Bait Shoppe could easily pay five employees to post five glowing reviews about how Bob's Fish Annihilator brings all the fish to the yard. Unless you actually know the person, it doesn't seem there's any way to guarantee the honesty.
By the same token, if Bob's having a bad day, five people could easily write how the Fish Annihilator ruined their marriage and stole their dog, without ever having any evidence of either occurrence.
Anecdotally, I know of one business here in Austin where the owner ordered his employees to post good reviews on various social services using their private email accounts.
