Germany’s defamation laws skew Google reviews

On a recent vacation in Berlin, Emma Watkins, a marketing assistant working in the U.K., wrote a three-star review of a bar she visited. “It was fine, but not amazing, and not what I expected from the high ranking review—it was four-point-something,” she recalls. Upon returning home, she noticed her middling review of the establishment was taken down. “When they said it was defamatory I was confused,” she says. “I did some Googling, then realized what had gone on. And suddenly the high rating for what I thought was pretty average made sense.” (Fast Company is not naming the bar so as not to fall foul of Germany’s defamation laws itself.) 

Watkins isn’t alone in losing trust in reviews of German businesses on Google. For much of the world, Google is far more pervasive than Yelp. If you want to find the best tourist attractions, bars, or restaurants in a new city outside the United States, your first port of call is likely Google Maps. 

The system works relatively well. The best restaurants are rewarded with good reviews, while would-be customers can make their own judgment on establishments that garner a two- or three-star rating. Some are weighed down by vicious one-star reviews from (likely?) nightmare customers while, in other cases, public judgment has rendered its verdict on the establishment.

Except, that is, in Germany, where practically every restaurant, bar, and tourist attraction appears to be suspiciously excellent. The country seems to be filled with four- and five-star establishments. 

In Germany, an overly permissive defamation system means that any criticism of a business is likely to be wiped out by Google’s takedown system. Fully 99.97% of Google Maps reviews taken down for “defamation” across the entire 27-country European Union are for businesses based in Germany, official European data shows. Social media is full of complaints that businesses in the country refuse to countenance negative reviews. There are German-language websites offering advice on how to strike negative reviews from Google’s register. These articles themselves have ratings, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, receive a score of 4.3 out of 5.

This is all part of the job of search engine optimization (SEO), which often extends into reputation management, says Manick Bhan, CEO of Search Atlas, a global SEO software company. Removing negative reviews isn’t new. But weaponizing Germany’s defamation system in this way is.

“As part of our work to provide trustworthy information on Google Maps, we remove reviews if they violate our content policies or local laws—not simply because a business dislikes them,” a Google spokesperson tells Fast Company. “Reviewers get notified if their contributions are removed and have the option to appeal that decision.” 

Typically, removing a negative review involves reaching out to the reviewer and asking them to reconsider their feedback, Bhan says. But in places like Germany where the digital laws are particularly strict, some SEOs handle the process differently. “They often classify negative content as defamation and file formal complaints, essentially using a legal loophole to have the content removed by Google or similar platforms,” Bhan says.

Germany’s stringent regulations make it possible for business owners to claim virtually any individual review as defamatory. Google’s own support site highlights that it’s aware of the matter. In response to a Google product expert’s explanation of how the review matter is a known issue, everyday users are acknowledging the power imbalance. “I get it, but it really skews the value that ratings in Germany really mean,” one user wrote. 

Google does not comment on how it handles takedown requests. But experts have observed that the company tends to take action against negative reviews reported as defamatory if the reviewers can’t cough up evidence they were actually at the establishment in question—like a check or bill for the meal— allowing the business owners to claim that the reviews are fictional. Under German law, the legal burden of proof is on those making statements rather than on prosecutors bringing a defamation case needing to prove the statements are false.

It’s why many users’ less-than-glowing reviews are taken down by Google. 

Bhan points out that taking down reviews when asked, even if the review is likely legitimate but lacking documentary evidence the reviewer was there, is an easier route for Google than keeping it up. “Google doesn’t want to risk penalties or fines from European regulators, so it may comply with such requests automatically, sometimes even at the expense of search quality,” Bhan says. “It’s less about doing what’s fair for users and more about staying compliant. This is clearly what’s happening here in Germany.” 

Of course, there are precedents for people to weaponize reviews to harm the reputation of businesses they disagree with. That’s why it’s seen as important to have the ability to dispute what are believed to be incorrect or non-factual reviews. But that weaponization can go both ways.

The SEO expert is frank about the practice of weaponizing takedowns for ‘defamation’ in Germany. “It’s not ideal, it’s not moral, but if everyone else is playing by those rules, businesses may feel forced to do the same.”