Fake Google reviews: legal remedies to obtain their removal and compensation for damages.

A few missing stars on a Google Business Profile can drive away an entire clientele. For restaurateurs, practitioners, craftsmen, retailers or service providers, online reviews have become a commercial asset in their own right, and their manipulation a formidable weapon.

The law is not powerless against fake reviews: disparagement, defamation, misleading commercial practice, statutory obligations of platforms. Yet one must choose the right characterisation, the right target and the right timing. Overview of the amicable and judicial remedies, in light of recent and sometimes surprising case law.

A business that discovers on its Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) a salvo of one-star reviews from persons it has never counted among its clients invariably asks the same questions: can these reviews be removed, can their authors be identified, and can compensation be obtained?

The answer is yes, but it requires avoiding several pitfalls. The first would be to believe that a mere warning letter to Google will suffice. The second would be to characterise the facts too lightly, whereas the choice between disparagement and defamation governs the entire procedural regime. The third would be to let time slip by, when some actions are time-barred within three months.

Characterising the disputed review, a prerequisite that governs the whole strategy.

One must first agree on what an online review is. The regulatory authority defines it as "the expression of a consumer's opinion on their consumption experience through any qualitative or quantitative element" (Article D111-9 of the French Consumer Code).

The following clarification is crucial: the consumption experience applies whether or not the consumer bought the goods or service they are reviewing.

In other words, the mere fact that the author of a review has bought nothing is not enough to make it a fake review: the prospect disappointed by a phone call or an in-store visit reports a genuine consumption experience. A fake review is something else: one whose author has had no experience with the business, one that is ordered, purchased, coordinated, or one that comes from a competitor, a former employee or an adversary disguised as a customer.

With this dividing line drawn, three legal characterisations compete.

Disparagement, the natural ground of the targeted business.

Disparagement is sanctioned under ordinary civil liability (Article 1240 of the French Civil Code).

The Cour de cassation defines it as the disclosure of information likely to bring a competitor into disrepute (Cass. com., 24 September 2013, no. 12-19.790), and clarified that it does not even require a situation of direct and effective competition: disclosing information likely to bring a product marketed by another into disrepute constitutes an act of disparagement, "unless the information relates to a matter of general interest and rests on a sufficient factual basis, and is expressed with a certain measure" (Cass. com., 9 January 2019, no. 17-18.350).

The threefold criterion is therefore well known: general interest, sufficient factual basis, measured tone.

Applied to consumer reviews, it often turns against the business. Some trial courts give particular weight to consumer freedom of expression, holding for example that publicly denouncing the high cost of a service is a simple manifestation of it (CA Reims, 10 July 2018, no. 18/00355).

The legitimate interest of consumer information is widely equated with a matter of general interest, although the case law is not perfectly settled on this point. As for the virulence of vocabulary, it is assessed with growing indulgence: the term "scam" was held not to refer to the criminal offence of fraud but to its everyday meaning, to be placed within the free criticism of disappointed internet users (CA Paris, pôle 1, ch. 2, 7 September 2023).

It must therefore be said plainly: against a genuine, merely harsh review, an action in disparagement is a steep climb. But the fake review changes everything.

The judicial protection rests on a presumption of good faith and of a real consumption experience on the part of the author; once the business shows that this experience does not exist, the factual basis collapses and the disrepute becomes wrongful.

The case law offers eloquent illustrations: reviews published about a restaurant "solely with the aim of harming" were held to be disparaging, their authors never having patronised the establishment (CA Dijon, 20 March 2018); reviews disparaging a hair salon to pressure its manager (CA Douai, 7 September 2023); or the scheme of a former intern making customers believe a salon had closed in order to redirect them to his own establishment (CA Montpellier, 25 April 2023).

The Paris Judicial Court likewise held disparagement in relation to fake reviews published on a Google Business Profile: the chronology of a post can, on its own, prove falsity.

The evidentiary stakes are therefore central: cross-checking the client file with pseudonyms, dating the reviews, having a judicial commissioner formally record the profiles of the authors, their other posts, the suspicious series. It is this bundle that turns protected criticism into a civil wrong.

Defamation, when the person is targeted.

The characterisation is quite different when the review no longer attacks the products or services but the person. Defamation is defined as "any allegation or imputation of a fact damaging the honour or reputation of the person or body to which the fact is imputed" (Article 29, first paragraph, of the Act of 29 July 1881).

A review that imputes to the named manager specific misappropriations, acts of violence or fraudulent conduct falls under the Act of 29 July 1881, with its constraints: three-month limitation from publication (Article 65), rigorous formalism, near-total exclusion of ordinary civil liability on the same facts. Public defamation of a private individual is punishable by a fine of 12,000 euros (Article 32, first paragraph).

The border between the two characterisations is sometimes thin, but merciless: many decisions refuse to apply Article 1240 of the Civil Code when the messages do not criticise products or services but attack the reputation of the person, in which case the 1881 Act must apply with its own constraints.

A miscategorisation is paid for by inadmissibility or nullity, and the three-month period prevents late reconsideration.

First reflex: reply to the review, systematically.

Before any offensive, a simple gesture is called for, which the courts have elevated into a quasi-procedural burden: reply to the review.

A public, factual and measured reply, contesting the very existence of the alleged consumption experience ("we find no trace of your visit to our establishment"), prepares the litigation ground: it documents the contestation, denies the author the comfort of unilateralism and reverses the evidentiary dynamic. It must be drafted with composure: any excess in the reply could turn against its author.

At the same time, the evidence must be preserved. Reviews can be modified or removed by their authors at any time: a judicial commissioner's report, drawn up as soon as detected, crystallises the content, the apparent identity of the profiles, the ratings, the dates and the context of the disputed series.

Second step: notifying the platform, a useful but rarely sufficient step.

Google provides a tool to report reviews that breach its content rules, which notably prohibit fake engagement, conflict-of-interest reviews and content unrelated to the actual experience. This internal notification should be paired with the reasoned legal notification provided by the Consumer Code under the head of doubt as to authenticity (Article L111-7-2).

The European regulation on digital services (DSA) has consolidated the notification regime: hosting service providers must set up notification mechanisms allowing illegal content to be flagged, acknowledge receipt, decide by a reasoned decision and inform the author, and online platforms must also open an internal appeal channel (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of 19 October 2022, Articles 16, 17 and 20).

In France, ARCOM oversees the proper application of this text, and breaches expose very large platforms to fines of up to 6% of their worldwide turnover.

The notification produces a decisive legal effect: it places the platform "in a position of knowledge" of the flagged content, a condition for engaging its liability if it fails to promptly remove unlawful content. On this promptness, earlier case law retains indicative value: removal times of a few days to two weeks were held excessive (CA Paris, pôle 5, ch. 1, 2 December 2014, no. 13/08052).

Reminder however: the host is only required to remove what is manifestly unlawful, and the Cour de cassation has forcefully recalled that this manifest unlawfulness does not result solely from an attack on honour or reputation, since the defence of truth or good faith might be raised (Cass. 1re civ., 26 February 2025, no. 23-16.762).

In other words, faced with a review whose unlawfulness requires debate (contestable defamation, ambiguous criticism), the platform may legitimately refuse removal and refer the applicant to the judge.

The fake review, however, has a favourable singularity: where falsity is objectively demonstrable (review predating the opening, author identified as a competitor, absence of any commercial relationship), manifest unlawfulness becomes arguable, and a well-documented notification has a real chance of succeeding without litigation.

Third step: formal notice to the author, when identifiable.

Where the author of the review is identifiable (known customer, recognisable competitor, former collaborator), formal notice addressed directly to the individual is often the most effective and fastest weapon.

It sets out the facts soberly, characterises without emphasis, orders the removal of the review within a short deadline (twenty-four to forty-eight hours are fully justified for a lying review that produces continuous harm) and reserves the business's rights to compensation.

Experience shows that a significant share of fake-review authors, faced with the prospect of being personally sued, spontaneously withdraw their post.

Identifying the anonymous author: the crux of the matter.

There remains, statistically the majority case, the author entrenched behind a pseudonym. But a solution exists: the court application for identification.

The law requires access and hosting providers to hold and preserve the data likely to allow the identification of anyone who has contributed to the creation of online content (Article 6, V, A, of the LCEN).

The victim business may apply to the judge, on the ground of legitimate motive, for disclosure of this data by the platform (Article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure).

One must still gauge what can be obtained. The retention regime distinguishes civil identity data, kept for five years, account and payment information, kept for one year, and above all IP addresses, kept for one year but whose disclosure is reserved for the fight against serious crime and delinquency.

One must finally reckon with a practical reality: the data held by platforms is sometimes fanciful, authors having used borrowed identities and VPNs.

The Cour de cassation drew a remarkable consequence: where identification of authors is impossible and renders any adversarial debate with them illusory, the judge must assess whether removal of the content is proportionate, opening the way to removal even absent prior condemnation of the author (Cass. 1re civ., 26 February 2025, no. 23-16.762).

The identification impasse is therefore no longer a procedural dead end.

Obtaining compensation: the action against the author.

Removal does not exhaust the subject: the damage suffered calls for compensation, and this is pursued against the author of the fake review, once identified. On the ground of disparagement, the action falls under ordinary civil liability, is time-barred after five years (Article 2224 of the Civil Code) and may be brought, depending on the parties' capacity, before the tribunal for economic activities (in the jurisdictions where it is being trialled, including Paris), the commercial court or the judicial court.

The damage is established by the drop in the overall rating, the chronology of commercial performance, attestations from deterred customers, and may include the cost of corrective measures.

On defamation, the action follows the regime of the 1881 Act: three-month limitation, jurisdiction of the judicial court, strict formalism of the prosecution act; the victim may act civilly or criminally, the criminal complaint with civil party status being admissible without a prior simple complaint for a press offence (Article 85 of the Code of Criminal Procedure).

Conclusion: a graduated strategy, tight deadlines.

The fight against fake Google reviews is neither a lost cause nor a formality. It follows a tested progression: preserve the evidence through a formal report, publicly reply to the review, notify the platform in a reasoned and documented way, put the identifiable author on formal notice, apply to the judge for identification of the anonymous author, seise the president of the judicial court through the accelerated procedure on the merits to obtain removal, and pursue compensation against the author.

Each step feeds the next: the reply reverses the presumption of factual basis, the report makes falsity demonstrable, the demonstration of falsity makes unlawfulness manifest, and manifest unlawfulness opens the way to cessation measures.

At a time when the DGCCRF is deploying its algorithmic detection tools and the regulation on digital services raises the obligations of platforms, the victim business has at last a coherent framework. It remains for the practitioner to play it methodically, for in this litigation more than elsewhere, haste is the best ally of the fake review.

The firm assists businesses confronted with fake-review campaigns in e-reputation matters: formal reports, reasoned DSA notifications, identification procedures under Article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure, urgent removal proceedings and compensation actions against identified authors.