[Saline9515]

It should be noted that defamation law has a very low threshold in Germany, to the point that businesses routinely sue Google Maps users for less-than-5-stars reviews. Google had to change their display of reviews because of this.

Three stars review is taken down for "libel": https://support.google.com/maps/thread/367778263/google-maps...

HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44734895

Google maps german policy: https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/1699727...

Meanwhile, service in Germany is still rather poor (especially if you have children), but at least no one can complain!

[CarlitosHighway]

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.

[Saline9515]

Multiple 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.

[luke5441]

Yes, Google just removes them as a first step because this is the least amount of work for them. Theoretically there is an Google appeals process. After that it needs to go to court.

My guess is that often reviews are generalizing (easy mistake to make). E.g. they say "service is slow", when they should say: "When I was there on Thursday at noon service was slow for my table".

[abustamam]

When reading a review, it should always be assumed that it is based off of one "visit". A negative review will probably never have more than a few visits and if they do they'd normally say "I used to come here a lot but after new ownership service sucks!"

[RobotToaster]

We're talking about a country where someone had their house raided and their devices stolen by the police for tweeting "Du bist so 1 Pimmel" (you are such a dick) to a politician.

[CarlitosHighway]

Well, it is an insult and the insulted always, before the internet and now, has the right to sue for it. Only because it happened on the internet doesn't change the law.

[luke5441]

This was later deemed inappropriate by courts. Shit happens -- as long as the corrective mechanisms work it is just exceptions.

[alterom]

> it should always be assumed

Who dictates the "should”?

The German law simply removes the need to assume anything.

[CarlitosHighway]

"it should always be assumed"...wow good luck with your life.

[DonHopkins]

"Lawfare" is a propogandistic term coined and used hypocritically by people who get away with doing illegal things themselves, and have a long track record of getting revenge for being legally indicted and prosecuted, by gleefully going after innocent people on their enemies list with the very legal system they control themselves. And you know exactly who I mean, who uses that term all the time.

[Saline9515]

The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

[nobody9999]

>The term is older than Trump. Suing everyone who criticizes you is a classic example of lawfare. The goal is not justice but the chilling effect created by your legal actions.

According to[0] the (aptly named) Lawfare Institute:

   Since the term “lawfare” is controversial in some circles, and subject to a 
   variety of interpretations and uses, a bit more explanation about our 
   understanding of the concept is in order. Going back to the 1950s, the term 
   has frequently been used in contexts wholly unrelated to national security, 
   ranging from divorce law to courtroom advocacy to colonialism to airfare for 
   lawyers.

While the term is often used to do as you assert, it can also have a different remit. cf. some of the topics addressed[1] by the aforementioned Lawfare Institute.

[0] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/about/our-story

[1] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/

[CarlitosHighway]

Anecdotal

[Saline9515]

Of course, Google spends engineering/legal hours to make country-specific changes relative to problems that do not exist.

[joe_mamba]

Save 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.

[CarlitosHighway]

There's no point in weighing the pros and cons of laws, if people want to change them, they need to pursue the official lane to do so. Arguing on this American "Brainiac MAGA" forum will not help them in their goals to make Germany more like the US.

[HPsquared]

Maybe there is a German law against spamming.

[biosboiii]

There 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]

That sounds like a great incentive for such an agency to create the reviews in the first place...

[lazide]

For 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]

So you can take down any especially glowing reviews of your competitors for only 50€ a shot? Nice!

[cute_boi]

I was travelling in hudson yard ny, and I can see ads where they claims they can remove any google review for $1000.

[camillomiller]

I 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

[belorn]

Sounds 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]

How is that remotely similar? DMCA is about IP law.

[doubled112]

You 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]

The 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.

[cpburns2009]

I 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.

[kwanbix]

That 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]

Having 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.

[CarlitosHighway]

You sound like you fumble your way through life. You use "very touristy" businesses, which is a sign of low IQ or trashy tastes, and then you write a review on the internet instead of just moving on with your life (again, you should learn to live better), and ultimately get done again by the review being removed. I'd say you need to rethink your whole approach to being.

[jorvi]

Nope, 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]

Are you speaking about the law in Germany? Truth is not an absolute defense to libel in all countries.

[Ravus]

I 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_st...

[dcrazy]

I’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.

[prox]

Also 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]

* FAANGAMO and service live in two different worlds

[SkyBelow]

Is 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]

>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]

If 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.

[oytis]

I think it was ruled that 1 star review without any words at all can be considered a defamation

[applfanboysbgon]

> HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44734895

This post is written by an LLM, and possibly a complete fabrication.

[Saline9515]

People don't need LLMs to lie, and someone in the comments tells a similar experience. You can also find plenty of similar anecdotes using a search engine of your choice.

You can even find many articles from specialized lawyers if you search in German: https://www.prinz.law/bewertungen/klage-zugestellt-wegen-neg...

[3ot]

Yeah, I agree about the LLM part.

But can confirm from personal experience that businesses threaten to sue based on Google Maps reviews.

[CarlitosHighway]

Let them sue then. Unless you lie in your review ("There was a used condom in my burger, 1 star"), nothing will happen.

[Saline9515]

"I trust the law and the justice system" is a great way to get a hands-on schooling on why people spend a lot of money on lawyers.

[microtonal]

This is why you get good insurance for legal help. If some company does this too you, you can defend without spending a lot on lawyers.

[emsign]

Please don't use fabricated anecdotes in replacement for your own anecdotes. That doesn't make your argument more trustworthy but doesthe opposite.

[jnovek]

If we’re talking about credibility, unfounded accusations of lying tend to harm the credibility of the accuser more than the accused.

[g8oz]

A lot of people use LLMs to clean up their sloppy text. Not realizing how fake it makes them sound. non-native speakers lacking confidence in their English are a type of llm abuser. It doesn't necessarily make the content fake.

[dgellow]

Damn, that makes public facing LLMs a horrible liability

[tempfile]

Public-facing LLMs are a horrible liability.

[pif]

Which is what thay should be in any sane environments. LLMs can be wonderful tools, but they cannot be trusted.

[InitialLastName]

No more of a horrible liability than a human writing public-facing copy.

[Blackthorn]

Good.

[harvey9]

Here's an article from outside the tech sector, which I am linking to as a corroboration since this is quite surprising for those of us unfamiliar with German law.

https://www.thelocal.de/20260504/how-a-google-maps-update-ex...

[arrowsmith]

See also: Germany's leader filing hundreds of criminal complaints against people who insult him on social media:

https://rmx.news/article/germany-chancellor-merz-quietly-fil...

[smcin]

Shocking, only 10 short years since this (when Merkel was Chancellor): Turkey asks Germany to prosecute comedian Jan Böhmermann (Germany's equivalent of John Stewart) over Erdoğan poem

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11474967

[arrowsmith]

Which led to a British journalist holding an "offensive poems about Erdogan" contest, which was won by Boris Johnson:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/19/boris-johns...

[CarlitosHighway]

"Germany's leader" - that's how you know it's a low-brow article.

[rpdillon]

Except the article doesn't say that, only the comment here does.

[7bit]

That's BS.

Google does not get routinely sued.

Yes, Lawyers send takedown requests to Google.

Google sends the reviewer a message and ask for a statement. If you provide one. They will check it and decide whether they seem it defamation or not.

However, Google doesn't verify shit. Even if you send them proof of a purchase or visit and your message is objectively a opinion (not defamation) they will take it down. Why? I assume because they really don't care about individual reviews and rather spare the time and money and just take the comment down.

Google changing their review displays is Google's decision. It has NOTHING to do with any threat of being sued.

They could actually leave the review up when it's not defamatory but they simply don't want to invest the time to validate it or risk leaving a potentially defamatory review online.

And the legal threat is without proof, so why would you even bring it up. OP could have simply posted the letter. They didn't wich makes this completely unprovable

[y42]

the threshold is not low, I would argue, it's just companies like to exploit it.

(I just wrote an extensive analysis about that https://nickyreinert.de/2026/2026-05-28-google-maps-reviews/