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You cannot get sued for a review just because it's lower than 5 stars. But of course if you write something like "I found a dead cockroach in my pizza", or "I h
by CarlitosHighway 3mo ago
You cannot get sued for a review just because it's lower than 5 stars. But of course if you write something like "I found a dead cockroach in my pizza", or "I hard that they don't clean the dishes enough" in a review without proof, that's defamation. And it doesn't matter if you give 1 or 5 stars with the review.
- camillomiller 3mo agoI wrote a one star review and posted pictures of a badly burnt pizza served at a restaurant in Berlin. Google sent me an email telling me they removed that because the restaurant filed a defamation claim
- CarlitosHighway 3mo ago[flagged]
- bialpio 3mo agoIt doesn't matter if some people think good pizza should be burnt to some degree. There is no such thing as objectively good pizza, so one-star review "The pizza was burnt, I didn't like it." is entirely valid thing to say.
- CarlitosHighway 3mo agoI disagree.
- jfoster 3mo agoThe entire concept of a review is that it's one person's opinion.
- CarlitosHighway 3mo agoIn Germany, we care more about facts and I'd rather have it stay that way. Americans lost their right to talk ANYTHING German a decade ago.
- DiogenesKynikos 3mo agoSomething like this happened to me too, for what it's worth. I wrote a completely factual description of my bad experience with a shop, and then got a nasty notice from Google that my review was being taken down because of a defamation claim. I looked up how this works, and I found ads for law firms that specialize in removing bad reviews. They charge a set price for each review they remove. As a regular consumer, you just have to accept that your honest reviews will be removed, unless you're willing to risk going to court, where you'll have to prove that your subjective experience was accurate.
- klvino 3mo agoCreating an unflattering online review has such a low bar for confirming identity. It would not be a surprise for a law firm advertising the review takedown service were hiring bot farms to leave reviews at scale, create their own market.
- CarlitosHighway 3mo agoThose law firms also have to operate within the law, doh. So if you think your review needs to stand, you should hire a law firm yourself and fight for your cause.
- DiogenesKynikos 3mo agoNice, so every time I visit a restaurant and want to leave a review, I'll have to lawyer up. Sounds eminently reasonable.
- addandsubtract 3mo agoBro is in this thread defending Google like he owns stocks. Oh wait...
- CarlitosHighway 3mo agoWell I do own Google stocks, since their IPO, but I'm not defending Google here but German culture against low-bro 400pounds American nerds.
- belorn 3mo agoSounds similar to Nintendo dmca takedowns. You could challenge the defamation claim in court and win, but you would have to spend a lot of money and time, and the only thing you get back in the end is the right to post the review.
- breezybottom 3mo agoHow is that remotely similar? DMCA is about IP law.
- doubled112 3mo agoYou could challenge the *DCMA* claim in court and win, but you would have to spend a lot of money and time, and the only thing you get back in the end is the right to post the *code to Github*.
- mystraline 3mo agoThe answer is you stay clear of US law jurisdictions and post your code to gitflic.ru Its where the DRM bypass software lives these days, along with Bypass Paywalls Clean.
- doubled112 3mo agoI've been on the internet for a long time, and it still surprises me that people willingly post emulator code next to their real names on Github.
- t-3 3mo agoThere's nothing illegal about emulation, IP theft is illegal. 99%+ of emulator projects are totally legal except in insanely corrupt countries.
- mystraline 3mo ago
- cpburns2009 3mo agoI gave a one star review to some cheap restaurant in Potsdam 10 years ago. I literally just said you get what you pay for. Last year I got a similar email from Google saying the review was removed for defamation.
- Saline9515 3mo agoMultiple people report that comments such as "Service was slow", or three star rating without comment were removed. If Google started to show how many reviews were removed, it was because the lawfare started to seriously affect the ratings.
- CarlitosHighway 3mo agoAnecdotal
- Saline9515 3mo agoOf course, Google spends engineering/legal hours to make country-specific changes relative to problems that do not exist.
- joe_mamba 3mo agoSave your breath. CarlitosHighway's posts on this thread shows he's just blindly running defense for Germany's status quo on defamation laws low threshold for abuse on every argument someone brings, not being open to arguing in good faith, weightings in on the pros and cons of this, so it doesn't matter what counterexamples you keep bringing to him, it won't change his mind, his replies will be more "anecdotal" snarks. When you see the pattern, best to stopped arguing with such users as their goal is not an honest debate, their goal is just to 'DDoS' you with their opinion.
- prox 3mo agoAlso competitors would leave shit reviews and Googles completely brick walling any way to rectify or moderate reviews made it a shit service in true Google fashion. Google and service live in two different worlds.
- fakedang 3mo ago* FAANGAMO and service live in two different worlds
- oytis 3mo agoI think it was ruled that 1 star review without any words at all can be considered a defamation
- biosboiii 3mo agoThere are agencies in Germany where you can buy review removals in a web shop for like 50 euros per review. You just have to link the review and they will send Google a legal document to delete it.
- xg15 3mo agoThat sounds like a great incentive for such an agency to create the reviews in the first place...
- lazide 3mo agoFor any given system, you’ll have those that try to play it straight - and those that will only ever try to play it crooked. Make one big enough, and you’ll even have people trying to play it crooked by pretending to play it straight.
- biztos 3mo agoSo you can take down any especially glowing reviews of your competitors for only 50€ a shot? Nice!
- cute_boi 3mo agoI was travelling in hudson yard ny, and I can see ads where they claims they can remove any google review for $1000.
- kwanbix 3mo agoThat is in practice not true. If you leave a fake but glowing 5-star review, no business will challenge it. But if you leave a 1, 2, 3, or even 4-star review, suddenly you're asked to provide proof. Of course, they can legally challenge a 5-star review as well. But in reality they conveniently don't seem to care about those. Anyway, Germany is probably one of the few places where this happens. The issue isn't necessarily that reviews can be challenged. The issue is that users aren't informed when they leave a review that they may later be required to provide proof of their visit. I once left a negative review of a very popular touristy business in Germany after a genuinely terrible experience. I included photos and detailed information, yet they still challenged the review, claiming I had never been a customer. Google then required me to provide additional evidence to prove that I had actually visited the place. What made it even more frustrating is that they challenged the review two years in a row. After the second challenge, I wrote to them that if they continued contesting the review, I would consider it harassment and pursue legal action. After that, they stopped. What I find pretty shady is that most businesses seem to wait a year or two before contesting reviews. By that point, most people no longer have receipts, invoices, or other documentation. If they challenged reviews immediately, customers would be much more likely to still have that evidence available. In my case, I take photos frequently, so Google accepted my proof and kept the review online. Ironically, after going through this process myself, I've come to believe that some form of verification should probably be standard worldwide. Requiring reviewers to provide evidence that they were actually customers could help reduce fake reviews. But if that's going to be the standard, it should be clearly communicated upfront, before people submit their reviews. Another related issue I have with Google Maps is that, at least in my home country, some places have reviews disabled because Google considers them too prone to polarization or controversy. Schools are one example. Personally, I think that's a terrible idea. I'd rather be able to read the reviews and make up my own mind. Instead, Google, in its infinite wisdom, decides that certain topics are too contentious for users to see feedback at all. I find that to be one of the worst decisions made by the Google Maps team. Hiding reviews doesn't eliminate disagreement or bias, it just removes information that users could otherwise evaluate for themselves.
- MaKey 3mo agoHaving proof is not always enough. I had a bad experience with a shady used car salesman and my review was removed by them. I appealed, nothing happened. I deleted the review and put up a new concise one with proof. It wasn't published. The appeal was eventually successful but my new review still not published. I appealed via arbitration, which was decided in my favor but the review is still not published, as their decision is not legally binding. So Google rather pays hundreds of Euros in arbitration fees than publish my honest review. In the arbitration process they said that because I deleted my first review there is nothing they could do, which to me is nonsense. Overall the Google Maps review situation is very frustrating. At least they now show how many reviews have been removed in the past year for defamation for every Google Maps listing.
- jorvi 3mo agoNope, that is not defamation. Both defamation and libel require it to be a false statement. If you did find a cockroach or your plate was dirty, you can freely say so without needing to provide extensive proof.
- dcrazy 3mo agoAre you speaking about the law in Germany? Truth is not an absolute defense to libel in all countries.
- Ravus 3mo agoI can vouch for what you're saying - Italy is a jurisdiction in which truth is not a defense, for instance. Truthful statement seem to be a defense for Germany, though. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1909 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...
- dcrazy 3mo agoI’m not a lawyer, much less a German lawyer, but it does seem to my lay eyes that this is true of “malicious gossip.” But what is “insult”? > Section 192 > Insult despite proof of the truth > Proof of the truth of the asserted or disseminated fact does not preclude punishment in accordance with section 185 if the insult results from the form of the assertion or dissemination or the circumstances under which it was made.
- SkyBelow 3mo agoIs this self contradictory? Making a claim of 3 star service, without providing 3 star service evidence, isn't any different than a claim like they don't clean the dishes enough. Sure, you didn't write out the exact words, but by submitting the review, you still submitted such a claim, and so it remains a question of if you provided evidence to prove it, which gets into how deep the legal system wants the evidence verified (is a picture enough, or do you need to provide evidence the picture is of the store at the date and time relevant to your review).
- benj111 3mo ago>I heard that they don't clean the dishes enough Is that defamation? That isn't a statement of fact, that's just relaying what you heard. If I relay what the Daily Mail says, am I also guilty of defamation, or can I rely on what others say?
- SoftTalker 3mo agoIf you quote the Daily Mail, with a citation, then probably not. If you are repeating a vaguely-source rumor that "you heard" then that's heresay and could be defamation.