Review Gating: Legal or Not?

What Is Review Gating

Review gating is the practice of asking customers about their experience first and only directing happy customers to leave a public review. Unhappy customers are funneled to a private feedback form instead. This practice inflates your public rating by filtering out negative voices. Google explicitly prohibits review gating in its terms of service and the FTC considers it a deceptive practice. ReviewGuard is designed to be fully compliant with both Google and FTC guidelines.

Google and FTC Policies

Google updated its review policies to ban selective solicitation. Businesses caught gating can have reviews removed or their listing suspended. The FTC has also taken enforcement action against companies that suppress negative reviews under the Consumer Review Fairness Act. Penalties can include fines and mandatory corrective disclosures. ReviewGuard helps you stay compliant by sending every customer the same review invitation regardless of their likely sentiment.

Compliant Alternatives to Gating

Instead of gating focus on delivering great service and asking every customer for a review. You can still collect private feedback separately as long as the public review path remains equally accessible to all customers. ReviewGuard offers a dual-path approach where customers see both a public review link and a private feedback option side by side. This gives unhappy customers an outlet without blocking their ability to post publicly.

Building a Strong Rating Without Gating

The best way to maintain a high rating is to resolve issues before they become negative reviews. ReviewGuard sends a brief satisfaction check after each interaction and immediately routes complaints to your service recovery team. By fixing problems in real time you reduce negative reviews at the source without any gating. This approach is not only legal but more effective because it actually improves your service rather than just hiding problems.