Overview
- Google began displaying a notice on business profiles in April that flags reviews removed “due to complaints of defamation,” making past deletions visible under a profile’s review section.
- A large Deutsche Presse-Agentur sample of more than 3,700 hotels and restaurants found between about 11% and 30% of profiles in many cities carried the deletion notice, with the share higher in big cities such as Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt.
- EU Digital Services Act transparency data show more than 756,500 Google Maps posts were removed in the first half of 2026, with almost all of those deletions reported in Germany.
- The number of removed reviews per business ranges widely: about half of affected firms had 1–20 deletions, roughly 20% had 21–50, and a small share showed 100–250 or more, a pattern that reporters say has helped spawn specialist removal services and law firms.
- Stakeholders offer mixed responses: industry groups welcome the notice but warn it should not imply wrongdoing; consumer advocates and academics warn paid deletion requests can cause overblocking; Google says removals do not change search ranking and the DSA data show counts but not whether each removal was justified.