Like other Google tags for Black-owned, Latino-owned, Veteran-owned, and women-owned businesses, LGBTQ+-owned tags must be added by a verified owner on the business profile. (It’s not like other map metadata, which can be added by community members.) These tags can be displayed throughout the Google Maps interface, or they can be searched for by typing “LGBTQ-owned businesses,” eg.
However, Google’s help page for adding these tags doesn’t mention any additional steps for business owners beyond adding tags, which may raise concerns that people may be playing with search results by lying, but it’s also hard to imagine that for nearly all Identity provides an appropriate verification system. Google’s UI also makes it clear that it’s not verifying the information itself, but rather that the label was added by the merchant.
The company also has systems in place to deal with some potential security issues. Its documents on merchant identity attributes say it has an abuse team to “expeditiously” deal with any harassment detected by its systems or reported by merchant owners for its tags. (For example, a user leaves a negative review because they don’t like the fact that a business is owned by a diverse group of people). This type of action won’t necessarily protect owners or their businesses from physical harm — sadly not out of the question, given that anti-LGBTQ violence and legislation has been on the rise. But it’s good to hear Google think about it, especially given its imperfect record of protecting gay creators in other areas of its business.
