Last month, the United States Federal Trade Commission enacted a law banning fake reviews, following earlier consumer practices introduced by the EU’s Digital Services Act. In what appears to be a move to comply with these new legal requirements, Google is taking additional steps to crack down on fake reviews, an issue that has become more prevalent this year due to the rise of AI and spam bots.

Google updated its first-party support documents with new information regarding review policy violations. While it has always been against Google’s terms of service to incentivize or outright purchase reviews, the company is now making a more public effort to highlight its attempts to curb these practices. Google has introduced three new actions for businesses that violate their review policy, which will be publicly visible before the full suspension of the business’s listing:

1. The business will not be allowed to receive new reviews/ratings for a set period.
2. Existing reviews/ratings will be unpublished for a set period.
3. A warning will display, notifying consumers that fake reviews were removed.

Websites such as Yelp have long placed “Consumer Alerts” (in various forms) on business profiles when they are caught violating the rules, such as paying for reviews. This practice has been important to them, even before the new FTC and DSA rulings, as Yelp’s credibility has been key to its success. Labels like the one Google is now using can severely damage a business’s reputation, and the mere threat of them will hopefully deter many bad actors. When consequences occur before a full listing suspension, even minor offenses are heavily discouraged.

It is important to note that in many cases under this new Google policy, listings are labeled as having “suspected fake reviews.” This implies that the algorithm has flagged the profile without human investigation. While this could lead to false positives, the suspension and warning label can be appealed. If successful (although the timeframe is uncertain), Google will lift the review suspension, but the reputational damage may already have been done.