Yes, @BarkingMice , @MortenCopenhagen , @WilfriedB
In the Google Maps help the sentence “we may be obliged by legal requirements” is quite common. So of course when there are more laws and the laws are in conflict Google must follow all them:
- In the EU, a community law requires Google to notify the author of a review that has been made private, and to give them the opportunity to appeal the decision up to and including a court case, if necessary.
- In Germany (which is also part of the EU), a local law provides that a business that is the victim of a (supposedly) defamatory review can sue the platform that hosts the review.
New laws are being proposed around the world, and some are already in place, to protect:
- consumers deceived by fake reviews created by businesses
- businesses against fake reviews created against them by competitors, as they can damage their business
Obviously, businesses use all the options that the laws make available to them to try to remove negative reviews, so the position of those who host the reviews (all of them, not just Google Maps) is quite complex, and must adapt to all the laws in this regard.
Therefore, in Italy, businesses often threaten legal action against reviewers in their responses to reviews, but they will never do so, because they would have to bear the costs of a trial that they will certainly lose.
In Germany, however, the legal action would be against Google, which then informs the reviewer and gives them the opportunity to appeal (a European obligation) but then will have to pass the problem on to the legal section (not to a trained operator) to assess whether there could actually be a risk of facing a trial, which could take place in months or even years.
In conclusion, I agree that
However, I wonder whether this abuse of the possibilities offered by the law could not end one day in a situation of this kind.
That message was appearing by mistake (probably a wrong update) in all our profiles for a few hours: Nothing to be scared of: New "Consumer alert message in your profile
The real meaning of that message can be found in this post by @PaulPavlinovich : Clampdown on fakes on the horizon