This all started for me about three years ago, when I left a Google review for a doctor saying I felt discriminated against. Shortly after, I got slapped with a legal threat demanding €40,000 in damages. I ended up settling and paying €1,000 in legal fees just to avoid the nightmare of going to court. That was my wake-up call—but back then, I thought it was an edge case.
It’s not.
Lately, it’s hit the restaurant scene hard. In just the past few weeks, I’ve received around 15 emails from Google telling me my reviews were removed. Every single one was a review below 5 stars. No hate speech, no personal attacks—just honest feedback like “service was slow” or “overpriced for the quality.” All gone.
Here’s the kicker: Google now asks me to prove I’m telling the truth about my experience. Think about how insane that is. How do you “prove” a bad dining experience? Am I supposed to film my entire meal in case I need evidence later?
Meanwhile, businesses don’t have to prove anything to claim defamation. All they need is a lawyer who knows how to fire off the right takedown request, and Google caves.
The result? You can’t trust the review scores anymore. Negative feedback is disappearing, and everything looks like a 4.7-star gem—even if it’s objectively mediocre. What used to be a crowdsourced recommendation engine has turned into a polished PR board.
It’s sad. Reviews used to be one of the most useful parts of the internet—messy, flawed, but real. In Germany, at least on Google Maps, they’re now basically fake.
I was looking for a gym and went to several, multiple times, paying outrageous amounts for single visits. Then I reviewed them on Google. None of my reviews survived the "defamation" steamroller.
I guess soon we'll be like Chinese people, inventing parables to say the truth without getting censored. "This was an amazing gym for a relaxing afternoon of crowd watching", or "I very thoroughly enjoyed the company of my friends while waiting for food in this restaurant, it also left me with an overrwhelming lightness in both my stomach and my wallet"...
Sounds like you need an anti-slapp law[1], I did a quick google and it looks like one is in the works[2] but not implemented yet. Given your experience it seem unlikely anything is currently in place, of if there is it does not give much protection.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
[2] https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/en/news/german-govern...
So, congrats. You've basically discovered that online review systems suck. Look at app stores. Look at Amazon product reviews. It's all being gamed and manipulated and abused. Google obviously won't moderate any of this because there's no substantial business value.
TripAdvisor, OpenTable - do they suffer under the same mechanisms that all ratings finally go up?
They can force you to court over a google review?!
and honestly in western europe and especially in german speaking countries restaurants are not really worth the high price, I rarely go, and most of the time only when someone recommends or its absolutely necessary like on a vacation with family once in blue moon
To prevent spam, a web of trust has te be employed.
Frankly, if I had a restaurant I would also try to crank up my rating.
It’s still useful though, the above experiences taught me to actually read the reviews, and read between the lines. It just takes more time.
I have to say re-building those internal scales takes a couple of brain cycles in my head every now and then, but I'm already used to those skewed ratings after checking IMDb reviews for years and learning that anything below 7.2 is a total crap and the rating above 8.0 usually marks a masterpiece.
May be you also didn't chose the right legal counseling? Just wondering.. but yes. Its a weapon and each one utilizes it. I would go on the full with such things and give proof and write quotes for the time needed and send them to the businesses like "because you cant stand the truth, here is the quote for 1h search evidence, 1h write up, 1h ... this that. Its perfect legal to write quotes in Germany. Its important not to move away from your right.
the other thing is, you don't know whether the removal is initiated by the businesses or is an algorithm-change happend??? Thats also a known thing, businesses losing bad and good customer ratings. They also tend to sue google after for their good reviews.
good luck on all your paths you step onto ;)
I once also had a situation with a doctor. But at that time I said bye and let him do the work of removing the post. I think, I'll go visit his office one day and write the same thing again with a few additional photos that puts a ledger on my written thing.