Ratings websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are changing the way people choose where to eat, where to shop, where to travel and where to lodge. According to its website, TripAdvisor alone is home to over 250 million reviews made by people with firsthand experience with the destination, hotel, or attraction that they visited.

But with the rise of these rating services comes a rise in fake and fraudulent reviews. Sometimes, disillusioned customers write a horribly hyperbolic or even flat-out false review; or, even worse, competitors write reviews that inaccurately rate their competition. Luckily for victims of these practices, these websites offer ways to remove false posts.

How to get a false review removed from Yelp

Business owners with Yelp pages can report abusive, false, or suspected fraudulent posts by contacting Yelp directly, using this page. Yelp employs their own moderators to evaluate reports and determine if they have any merit. Of course, moderators have to ferret out illegitimate reports from business owners who just want to remove negative reviews.

When requesting removal of a review, it is important for the requestor to keep the request as objective as possible. A request to remove a review that states “I did not like . . .” will likely be unsuccessful, as that is someone’s opinion and cannot be proven false. However, if a reviewer posts hard facts (for instance, “the restaurant charged my card twice and never fixed it”) and those facts are false, the review is much more likely to be removed.

See this blog post with more details about what to include in a removal request.

If Yelp does not remove a negative review itself, it requires a court order recognizing a valid judgment in a defamation lawsuit in order to remove the review. This is a very expensive and time-consuming way to remove a review. To help the process along, business owners with disputed reviews on their Yelp pages should contact an expert Internet attorney to help navigate the process and deal with Yelp.

How to get a false review removed from TripAdvisor

A negative TripAdvisor review is even more damaging than a Yelp review, since TripAdvisor does not let business owners respond to reviews. On its Review Moderation page, TripAdvisor lays out the process for removing fraudulent reviews and defines fraudulent as “[a]ny attempt to mislead, influence or impersonate a traveler.” The page also warns of companies designed to generate and post fraudulent reviews, as well as successful litigation against such companies.

Business owners can submit removal requests to TripAdvisor on this page. Much like Yelp, TripAdvisor employs a team of moderators to parcel through these requests, and the more objective and specific the request, the greater the likelihood that the negative review will be removed. This also means that business owners should keep meticulous records, which will allow them to easily prove that specific complained about instances are false. This will help to quickly get the negative reviews removed from TripAdvisor.

Finally, like with Yelp, an expert Internet attorney can help to navigate this process.

Removing false reviews from other websites

For all other review websites, including those that do not have streamlined moderation units like Yelp and TripAdvisor, one who would like to remove false, fraudulent or defamatory content should visit the website’s Terms of Service page. Every website should have such a page, and if the website allows users to post comments, the Terms of Service should govern what kind of comments are forbidden. Generally, false and defamatory comments are considered violations of a website’s Terms of Service.

If so, the individual who would like the comment removed should email the webpage directly. Many Terms of Services (or Privacy Policies) will give a contact email address for such inquiries. The requestor should inform the website that a commenter has violated the website’s Terms of Service, and that their comment should be removed.

For help with this process, please contact one of our expert Internet Defamation Attorneys at 855-473-8474.

Check out the Revision Legal podcast on Making A Murderer for additional discussion on false Yelp reviews.

Section 230 and Its Limits in Review Removal Cases

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1), immunizes platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google from liability for content posted by their users. This means that businesses cannot sue these platforms for hosting false reviews—only the reviewer can be liable. Section 230 also provides platforms with broad discretion to remove (or refuse to remove) content: under § 230(c)(2), a platform that takes good-faith action to restrict access to objectionable material faces no liability for doing so, even if that action is inconsistent or arbitrary.

The practical consequence of § 230 for businesses seeking review removal is that neither Yelp nor TripAdvisor is legally required to remove defamatory content—even content a court has declared defamatory—unless compelled by a valid court order. Yelp’s terms of service explicitly state that it will remove content in response to a court order finding the content defamatory, but voluntary removal without a court order is entirely at Yelp’s discretion.

Identifying Anonymous Reviewers: Subpoena Practice

When a reviewer posts falsely under an anonymous account, businesses often need to unmask the reviewer before filing a defamation lawsuit. The process requires filing a “John Doe” defamation lawsuit and then serving a third-party subpoena on the platform seeking the reviewer’s account information—IP address, email address, and payment information if any.

Platforms routinely contest these subpoenas, often on First Amendment grounds. Courts apply varying standards for unmasking anonymous speakers. The Delaware Supreme Court in Doe v. Cahill, 884 A.2d 451 (Del. 2005), adopted a “summary judgment” standard requiring the plaintiff to present evidence sufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment before the subpoena will be enforced. Other courts apply a lower “good faith” standard. Businesses seeking to identify anonymous reviewers should be prepared to present specific evidence of falsity—not just the opinion that the review is unfair.

Defamation Per Se and Damages

In a defamation lawsuit against a reviewer, businesses benefit from the doctrine of defamation per se, which applies when the false statement falls into a category that is considered inherently damaging. Under most state laws—including Michigan’s—false statements that accuse a business of dishonesty, fraud, or misconduct in its trade are defamation per se, meaning the plaintiff does not need to prove specific monetary damages. A business can recover presumed damages and—where the reviewer acted with actual malice or in reckless disregard of the truth—punitive damages.

Not all negative reviews are defamatory. A one-star review that says “I had a terrible experience” or “I will never go back” is pure opinion and enjoys absolute First Amendment protection. A review that states specific false facts—”the owner stole my credit card information” or “the food made my family sick”—is a provably false statement of fact and can form the basis of a defamation claim. The distinction between actionable false facts and non-actionable opinions is one of the most important analytical questions in any online defamation case.

Strategic Alternatives to Litigation

Full defamation litigation is expensive and time-consuming. For businesses weighing their options, several alternatives short of a lawsuit may be worth exploring:

• Platform dispute process — Detailed, well-documented reports to Yelp and TripAdvisor’s support teams—citing specific false statements with supporting evidence—sometimes result in voluntary removal without litigation
• Cease and desist letter — A letter from an attorney to the reviewer explaining the legal exposure of their false statements sometimes results in voluntary removal or correction
• Defamation demand letter with a litigation deadline — More formal than a cease and desist, this letter demands removal within a specified period before a lawsuit is filed, and it signals that you have counsel and have assessed the claim

If your business has been harmed by false online reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google, or any other platform, contact the internet defamation attorneys at Revision Legal at 855-473-8474 or complete the contact form on this page. We regularly handle review removal and defamation matters and can help you evaluate the most cost-effective path to protecting your reputation.