If You Send Review Requests, You Need to Know the Rules

If you run a platform that sends review requests, you need to know the rules.

Review sites and regulators have tightened those rules over the past two years, and the businesses on your platform rely on your workflow to follow them.

Most platforms scope solicitation as a growth feature. Pick a template, set a cadence, turn it on for every location. But the rules around how businesses ask for reviews now come from three directions at once: the review sites themselves, US regulators and UK regulators.

It's a good thing they're cracking down. Fake and manipulated reviews hurt the businesses that earn theirs honestly. But when you're sending requests on behalf of thousands of businesses, you're making compliance decisions for every one of them.

Google is now pausing reviews on spam spikes

Google said in April 2026 that when it detects a spike in spam reviews, it removes them, pauses new reviews and alerts the owner. In September 2026, owners began reporting the emails: Google removes the flagged reviews, then temporarily pauses new ratings, reviews and other contributions, typically for a few days, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable.

At least one practitioner has shared a case she believes was a false positive: a business that opened a new location, kept up its usual steady stream of reviews, and got paused anyway.

The detail that matters for platforms is who gets notified. The email goes to the business owner. Your platform doesn't hear about it. From inside your product, it just looks like reviews stopped coming in.

This sits on top of Google's existing content rules. Google prohibits incentives for reviews and selectively soliciting positive ones, and in April 2026 it made asking customers to include specific content, like a staff member's name, a policy violation.

The FTC's Consumer Review Rule

In the US, the FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials has been in effect since October 2024. It prohibits practices including fake reviews, buying reviews, offering incentives conditioned on a review being positive or negative, undisclosed reviews from insiders, and misrepresenting that the reviews you display are all or most of the reviews you received.

The FTC sent warning letters to ten companies in December 2025 and reminded businesses that penalties can reach $53,088 per violation.

The UK's DMCC Act

In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act made several review practices automatically unlawful from April 2025. They include fake reviews, incentivised reviews that aren't clearly disclosed, hiding negative reviews, and misleading star ratings. Businesses that publish reviews also have a duty to take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove fake or misleading ones.

The Competition and Markets Authority can now fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover without going to court. In March 2026 it opened five investigations covering the exclusion of one-star reviews, the design of rating systems, staff-written reviews and undisclosed incentives, per Fieldfisher's summary.

Where platforms get exposed

None of these rules are written for platforms specifically. But the practices they target are often set inside a platform's solicitation logic, not by the business owner. A few examples:

• Who gets asked. Filtering out unhappy customers before sending the review link conflicts with Google's policy against selective solicitation.
• What the message says. A template that asks customers to mention a team member or a specific phrase now violates Google's policy, and asking about a specific product may too.
• What's offered. Google prohibits incentives for reviews. The FTC prohibits incentives tied to sentiment. The UK requires incentivised reviews to be clearly disclosed.
• How much, how fast. A campaign blast or a new location's first month can produce the kind of sudden volume Google's spam systems watch for.
• Which site you're asking for. Yelp doesn't allow businesses to ask for reviews at all. A single request flow pointed at every site will break at least one site's rules.

These are product decisions with consequences for your customers. And once you automate them, the same mistake can affect every business using the feature at the same time.

Incentives: what's allowed, and where

Incentives are where well-meant features most often go wrong. A discount for leaving a review sounds harmless. Whether it is allowed depends on the site and the country.

• Google. No incentives for reviews of any kind, per its contribution policy. A discount for "an honest review" is still an incentive.
• Yelp. Businesses shouldn't ask for reviews at all, with or without a reward.
• US. The FTC's rule bans incentives conditioned, explicitly or implicitly, on a review being positive or negative. Its guide for marketers adds that even an unconditional incentive should be disclosed in the review, because it can change how readers weigh it.
• UK. Incentivised reviews must be clearly disclosed.
• Your own site. First-party reviews give you more room. In general, US and UK rules allow a reward for a review on your own site if it doesn't depend on sentiment, the review discloses it, and negative reviews aren't hidden. Check the rules in each market you serve.

For a platform, that means incentives can't be one global switch. They need to be a per-site setting, off for Google and Yelp, with a disclosure built into every incentivised first-party review.

How to ask for reviews the right way

Asking works. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found 78% of consumers were asked to write a review in the past 12 months, and most of them went on to write one. The same practices that get more reviews also keep you inside the rules:

1. Ask everyone. Send the same request to every customer, not only the ones you expect to be happy.
2. Ask soon. Send the request shortly after the visit, purchase or appointment, while the experience is fresh.
3. Make it personal, not scripted. Mention the service or visit so the request feels real. Don't tell people what to write, who to name or how many stars to give.
4. Keep it short. A couple of sentences and one clear link or button. Every extra step loses people.
5. Keep a steady pace. BrightLocal found 74% of consumers only care about reviews from the last three months. A steady flow beats a one-off blast, and it avoids the spikes Google's spam systems watch for.
6. Reply to the reviews you get. 89% of consumers expect owners to respond, per the same survey. Customers are more willing to leave feedback when they can see it gets read.

Questions to ask your team or your provider

Whether solicitation is built in-house or powered by a partner, someone needs to be able to answer these:

1. Who tracks policy changes? Google changed its review rules more than once this year, and at least one change was spotted by practitioners before Google announced it. Who notices, and how fast does the product change?
2. Are rules applied per site? Can the workflow behave differently for Google, Yelp, Facebook and vertical sites, or does one template go everywhere?
3. Does every customer get the same ask? Is there anything in the flow that screens sentiment before the review link is sent?
4. Is volume paced? What happens when a new location onboards or a large list is uploaded at once?
5. Will you know when a profile is paused? Is review velocity monitored, so a sudden drop gets flagged instead of looking like a slow month?
6. Is there a record? If a regulator or a review site asks what was sent, to whom and when, can you show it?

Someone needs to own keeping those workflows compliant as the rules change. Your customers are assuming you already do.

FAQ

Can a business offer an incentive for a Google review?

No. Google prohibits incentives for reviews, including discounts and freebies, even if the review isn't required to be positive.

Is review gating allowed?

Not on Google, which prohibits selectively asking for positive reviews. The FTC also warns against only asking customers you expect to be happy, and hiding negative reviews can break both the FTC's rule and UK law. Send the same request to everyone.

Can you ask customers for Yelp reviews?

No. Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews at all. Leave Yelp out of automated request flows.

Can a review request suggest what to write?

Not on Google. Since April 2026, asking customers to include specific content, like a staff member's name, violates Google's policy. Keep the request neutral.

What should a platform keep a record of?

What was sent, to whom, when, for which site and with what offer, if any. If a review site or regulator asks, that log is how you show the flow was compliant.

Building or reviewing a solicitation workflow?

Shout About Us is the review management API for marketplaces and platforms. Our Review Solicitation API sends SMS and email review requests from your platform, alongside APIs for review data and responses. If you're scoping solicitation or auditing what you already have, bring your sources, markets and expected volume and we can walk through how the rules apply to your setup.

See the Review Solicitation API, explore the API documentation or book a conversation.

This article is general information about review platform policies and consumer protection rules, not legal advice.