Is review gating illegal? What the FTC, Google and review sites say

It can be. Review gating means asking customers how they feel, then inviting only the happy ones to post a public review. The US Federal Trade Commission says it can violate the FTC Act, though its 2024 rule on reviews does not mention it. Google and Trustpilot forbid it, and Yelp asks businesses not to ask at all.

Below is what each text says, quoted from the official pages as we read them on 13 October 2026, and how to ask for reviews without gating. This is not legal advice.

What is review gating?

The FTC's own definition, from the Federal Register notice that published its 2024 rule: “Review gating occurs when a business asks past purchasers to provide feedback on a product and then invites only those who provide positive feedback to post online reviews on one or more websites.”

A typical version is a short survey. A customer taps four or five stars and is sent to Google. A customer who taps one, two or three stars gets a “please tell us what went wrong” form instead, and never sees the public link. Other versions are quieter: sending review requests only at a moment that unhappy customers never reach, or letting staff pick whom to ask.

Is review gating illegal under FTC rules?

The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, was published on 22 August 2024 and, according to its Federal Register notice, took effect on 21 October 2024. Two of its sections come close to gating.

Section 465.7, review suppression. Part (a) covers threats and intimidation used to stop or remove a review. Part (b) covers reviews shown on your own website. It calls this an unfair or deceptive practice:

“For a business to materially misrepresent, expressly or by implication, that the consumer reviews of one or more of the products or services it sells displayed in a portion of its website or platform dedicated in whole or in part to receiving and displaying consumer reviews represent most or all the reviews submitted to the website or platform when reviews are being suppressed (i.e., not displayable) based upon their ratings or their negative sentiment.”

Section 465.4, buying reviews. It bars incentives “conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative”.

Neither section names gating. In the notice that published the rule, the FTC wrote: “although § 465.4 does not cover ‘review gating,’ review gating can nonetheless violate section 5 of the FTC Act.”

The FTC's Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR 255.2, describe gating almost word for word in Example 11: a marketer asks recent buyers for feedback, then “invites purchasers who give very positive feedback to post online reviews of the products on third-party websites. Less pleased and unhappy purchasers are simply thanked for their feedback.” The Guides say this “may be an unfair or deceptive practice if it results in the posted reviews being substantially more positive than if the marketer had not engaged in the practice.” They add that inviting all recent purchasers instead “would not have been unfair or deceptive, even if it had expressed its hope for positive reviews.”

What Google's review policy says

Google's policy on prohibited and restricted content for Maps reviews is direct. Under rating manipulation it lists what merchants may not do, including:

“Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”

The same list bans incentives “in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review”, and says merchants “should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included.” What Google does allow: merchants may “Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.”

What Trustpilot and Yelp say

Trustpilot's guidelines for businesses, in their September 2026 version, ask businesses to invite “everyone in the same way, and at the same point in the customer journey, regardless of whether they’ve had a positive or negative experience with your business”. They tell businesses not to “Be selective with invitations”, and name three forms of it:

• “Inviting only those people who you know have had a positive experience”
• “Setting review invitations to go out to customers at a certain stage in the customer journey that will only be reached by people who have had a good experience”
• “Pre-screening people who leave a review by directing customers who have had a good experience to leave a review and those with a bad experience to contact you directly”

Yelp goes further. Its support article Don't Ask for Reviews says: “Don’t ask anyone to review your business, be it customers, mailing list subscribers, friends, family, etc.” and “Don’t ask for reviews after requesting customer feedback in other places like surveys or contact forms.” It explains that its software “may not recommend reviews that seem to be prompted or encouraged by the business.”

How to ask for reviews without gating

The texts above point the same way: ask everyone, ask the same way, and let the rating land wherever it lands.

1. Ask every customer. Pick a trigger that does not depend on how things went, such as a finished booking or a delivered order, and use it for everyone.
2. Show the public links to everyone. If you ask for a private rating first, the public buttons should appear whatever the rating was. Only then is the private step feedback rather than a filter.
3. Use neutral words. “How did we do?” works. Trustpilot's example of what not to write is “If you like us, please leave us a 5-star review”.
4. Offer nothing in return for a review. Google and Trustpilot ban incentives, and the FTC rule bars incentives tied to a review being positive or negative.
5. Check each site's rules before you add its link. Yelp, for one, asks businesses not to ask.
6. Use the bad ratings. A private one-star rating with a comment tells you what to fix. Reply, put it right, and leave the public reviews alone.

How MagizAI asks for reviews

MagizAI has a Reviews app, which is off until a manager switches it on. It emails a customer after a chat is closed as solved or a booking is marked done, at the delay you choose, as long as the customer left an email address. The email opens a page with a star rating and a comment box that only your team sees. After the customer sends it, the page shows the same buttons for the public review sites you added, whatever rating they gave. One point to weigh against Trustpilot's rule above: a chat is asked only once it is closed as solved, a stage that a customer whose problem was not fixed may never reach. A finished booking is a trigger every customer reaches. A rating of one or two stars emails your team, unless you switch that off, and a rating about a chat also leaves a private note on that chat in the team inbox. Each address is asked at most once in 90 days, and every email carries an unsubscribe link. It covers bookings from booking forms and conversations from the live chat.