7 years ago, a buddy of mine left a review at a local mobile phone repair shop in Germany. He wasn’t quite happy, so he gave 3 out of 5 stars. That’s it. No angry text, no nothing. Just 3 out of 5 stars.
A few days ago, 7 years after he left that rating, he suddenly got an email from Google informing him that his review will be taken down due to “defamation”.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Google received a complaint about the following URL(s) based on the following legal grounds: defamation
After verification we’re now informing you about our decision:
Affected content: Post
Jurisdiction: Germany
Seemingly in violation of: Defamation
Consequence: Access Restriction
Below you can find the affected URL(s).
Due to this we’re currently in the process of applying the given action to the affected contents on Google Local Reviews for users world-wide.
Affected URL(s):
<Name>
★★★
<URL to the Google Maps review>
Further down in the email, they’re trying to explain, that this review somehow violates “specific laws of a local business” and that’s why they were obliged to remove it. And a link to appeal, or in Google’s words: “Ask Google to review the decision”.
Of course, he clicked that link. He typed some short message about how a 3 star review without any further text from 7 years ago can suddenly be a “defamation”. And there was an auto-reply about his email being queued due to a high number of such requests and that they will get back to him “only if your request contains a well-founded and justified complaint”.
Today, he received the reply:
We have received your complaint and checked it.
Google won’t take any actions at this time.
The affected content apparently infringes:
Jurisdiction: Germany
Seemingly in violation of: Defamation
<URL to the Google Maps review>
You can also contact a certified extrajudicial arbitration board or a court. Here you can find further information about the available options. If you have any legal questions or want to check out the other legal actions that you could possibly use, you should contact your own lawyer.
Kind regards,
Your Google-Team
And this seemingly happened to all reviews of that business that were 3 stars or lower. Because, when I first checked it after the first email, there were a few 1- and 3-star reviews – including that of my friend – still visible.
Now, a few days later, only reviews with 4 stars or better are showing up in Google Maps for that business. And their overall rating shot up to 4.9. But if you open the same business on Apple Maps, it paints a different picture (to be fair, there are only 5 reviews on Yelp – one 5-star, one 3-star and three 1-star):
I don’t know on which laws Google bases these removals on. There’s the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), but that only applies to social networks. Also, this German law site explicitly states that reviews are opinions and thus can’t be prosecuted under German law as long as they’re true and about the product/service.
I’d really like someone from Google to explain to me how a simple 3-star review on Google Maps might be a lie or unrelated to the reviewed business.
So, it seems that Google acts in what is called anticipatory obedience in Germany. It just removes whatever people complain about and makes it extremely hard to get it reinstated (“contact your own lawyer”). I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve even automated the whole process without any human being actually checking anything.
Which brings me back to the title:
If you want Google to remove bad reviews from a (German) business on Google Maps, just report them as defamation.
UPDATE (10 Jul 2025)
Turns out, this is going on for quite a while by now. After posting on Reddit about this, people pointed me to other subreddits where this is mentioned on a regular basis, e.g. here. It even went so far that people now collect businesses that had their bad reviews deleted.
It appears that Google Maps Reviews have become completely useless – at least for Germany. Businesses that only have ratings of 4 stars or better are very likely to have abused the reporting feature in the way described above. What a joke.
UPDATE (11 Jul 2025)
Digging more on Reddit turned up some advice on how to get your review reinstated. This redditor explains how he reminded Google of the actual German laws around this and that it’s the job of the accuser to prove that they had any damages from the review. Which worked out for him/her.
However, this other redditor talks about how she got her same review reinstated several times because the business reported it again and again. And Google doesn’t seem to realise that it’s always about the exact same review and now even threatens to keep the review permanently hidden instead.