[l23k4]

Wow, you guys really think this is good?

Because of the same rules, German restaurants also get to pick and choose which reviews stay up. They can literally take down any specific reviews they like.

A restaurant that mostly gets 1 star reviews will still show up with 5 stars on Google maps, as they will simply delete the reviews with less than 5 stars as defamatory.

Here's a couple of examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1peujau/google_rev...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/18z4shs/legal_thre...

https://www.reddit.com/r/frankfurt/comments/1lox7ha/bad_revi...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1iiaco8/restaurant...

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskGermany/comments/1ha7sxf/why_do_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/1t613w7/it_was_fin...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1l98608/threatenin...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1sw34jc/can_you_ge...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1sw34jc/can_you_ge...

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/10kmn66/writing_an...

tl;dr Germans are particularly bad at coming up with reasonable rules to handle these situations

[sham1]

And the solution to this is to go through the German political system. The courts can't just decide to not follow the law just because it's a bit silly, and for as long as the laws are the way they are, this unfortunate loophole for removing negative reviews will continue to exist. But clearly the law can have both positive and negative consequences.

[l23k4]

> But clearly the law can have both positive and negative consequences.

Broad defamation laws always have overwhelmingly negative consequences.

[Phelinofist]

But it also shows the number of removed reviews (in a range like 0-50, 50-100 and so forth). If you encounter a restaurant with 5 starts but a lot of removed reviews you know whats up.

[l23k4]

That's a fairly new workaround that took Google years to come up with.

[mrguyorama]

Or, you know, Google's review system has no law that actually ensures they only remove valid and actual defamation claims from the system, so they just remove whatever and claim it's defamation.

The US has no strict defamation law and yet your bad review will often still get removed from Amazon or Yelp for no valid reason.

[l23k4]

>Or, you know, Google's review system has no law that actually ensures they only remove valid and actual defamation claims from the system, so they just remove whatever and claim it's defamation.

How could Google possibly decide which defamation claim is valid and which is not? What realistic cost-effective alternative do they have which does not involve accepting every report of defamation at face value?

>The US has no strict defamation law and yet your bad review will often still get removed from Amazon or Yelp for no valid reason.

Amazon and Yelp choose to do that, they are not forced to do that. How is that supposed to be even vaguely relevant?

[mrguyorama]

That's my point.

HN users love to blame this stuff on "Tyrannical EU law" when these things aren't driven by law at all!

If Google says "We are removing this because it violates German defamation laws", they don't have to be telling the truth!

Companies are making these choices for their own benefit and somehow HN posters still blame government.