A review on your Google listing accusing you of scamming customers, stealing or mistreating your staff. A photo uploaded by a user that is not of your business. A change to your opening hours or phone number that someone has suggested to harm you. For many businesses and professionals in Spain, Google Maps is the shop window, and that is exactly why it is also used to attack them.
Criticism or defamation: the difference that matters
First, two things need to be separated:
- A negative opinion, however harsh or unfair, is protected by freedom of expression. "The service was slow and expensive" is an opinion.
- A statement of false facts that damages your reputation may be unlawful. "They charged me for work they never did and stole from me" is a specific accusation.
Spain's Organic Law 1/1982 protects the right to honour, which also covers companies, and the Spanish Criminal Code punishes insult (injurias) and slander (calumnias) in Articles 205 to 210, the latter when someone is falsely accused of a crime. If the author is a competitor, there may also be denigration under the Unfair Competition Act.
What Google removes
Google's content policies for reviews and user-generated content allow it to remove, among other things:
- False or misleading content, including reviews that are not based on a real experience.
- Conflicts of interest: reviews by competitors, by former employees with a grievance or by people who were never customers.
- Harassment, hate, offensive language and personal attacks.
- Personal information, such as an employee's full name alongside accusations, their phone number or their address.
- Off-topic content that does not describe the experience at the business.
If you manage the listing, you can report the review from your Business Profile and track the status of the report. If it is rejected, you can ask for it to be reviewed again.
Beyond reviews
Defamation does not always come in the form of stars:
- Photos uploaded by users that are not of your business or show you in an offensive way. They can be reported one by one.
- Questions and answers on the listing, where someone spreads rumours.
- Suggested edits to your hours, address, phone number or category, or even a "permanently closed" suggestion. Check your profile often and reject or correct any change that was not yours, especially during the off season when you may be looking less.
- Duplicate or fake listings created under your name to collect negative reviews.
If the review names a person
When a review accuses an employee or the owner by first name and surname, data protection and that person's right to honour come into play as well as Google's policy. It is one of the situations with the best chance of removal.
When Google will not remove it
If the content policy is not enough, there are legal routes:
- A notice of illegal content to Google, based on Spanish law. The Digital Services Act requires Google to process it, give reasons for its answer and offer a way to challenge it.
- A formal demand to the author, if they can be identified, to remove or correct it.
- Civil proceedings for infringement of the right to honour or, in serious cases, a criminal complaint. With a court decision, removal is much simpler.
How to reply in the meantime
If you decide to answer the review, do it once, calmly, without going into the details of the dispute, and in the language it was written in. A composed reply shows readers that the business is serious. Never reveal the customer's details or accuse them in public: you could end up being the one breaking the law.
And keep asking real customers for reviews, legitimately. A listing with plenty of genuine opinions dilutes the effect of a one-off attack. Remember that buying reviews or rewarding them is prohibited and can lead to penalties.
Mistakes to avoid
- Threatening the author in your public reply. It backfires.
- Mass reporting with staff accounts. Google detects it.
- Not documenting. Take dated screenshots before reporting, because if the content is removed and comes back you will need to prove it is happening again.
- Confusing harsh criticism with defamation. Asking for legitimate opinions to be removed without grounds weakens the requests that do have them.
Getting it right from the start
Telling what can be removed from what cannot, choosing the right policy and knowing when to move to the legal route is what separates a report that gets lost from one that is resolved. All the more so if the attack is coordinated or comes from a competitor.
If you are interested in the legal framework, we explain it in fake reviews from competitors. And if you would like us to handle it, see removing Google reviews. We work in English, remotely, and deal with Google and the Spanish authorities on your behalf.
