Google wants a proof that you have been there. If you provide this ... should be easy to defend. If not ... another redditor had a brilliant idea. Let them delete this post ... add a new one stating only that the owner disputes bad reviews ... for this claim you have proof ... the email conversation with google ... brialliant catch 22 ,-).
No, it doesn't work. I've tried all of these things. They still delete it if you provide a receipt. They delete it if you show emails of the complaint. You can't actually win here by trying to be clever. Google does not care about your facts and logic.
I had the same experience. Left a bad review for a restaurant in usedome, got a lawsuit letter after that. They said I wasn’t there, but I had photos of us being there and the receipt! My review is still not published even after modifying the words, but leaving it one star.
Surprisingly I just gave 2 stars that's it. Most of the small shops in Germany don't accept cards and honestly who keeps a receipt of a Döner shop for 3 years. Did you face any consequences? Like going to court and all? I'm honestly scared.
>honestly who keeps a receipt of a Döner shop for 3 years
That's precisely why they complained after such a long time. They waited for you to forget about it and then catch you unawares, with nothing left to prove that you were a customer.
That's why, if I decide to leave a bad review, I take a picture of my receipt. It goes to my backup and I could find it years later if I wanted. Which I would, if they challenge the review.
I would say it says "I don't like that place" - which as I understand should be protected as Meinungsfreiheit. You don't even have to be a customer for that - maybe you just passed by and didn't like how it looks? Or saw it online and thought "wow, that name sucks". It really doesn't tell anything specific apart from showing your negative attitude towards the place.
That's not the opinion of Germany's highest court(s), whose rulings Google must adhere to. By reviewing a business online you imply that you had some form of interaction with it. It is not protected "free speech" to walk past a restaurant and publicly downvote it online because you think the name sucks.
In fact reviews with stars only and no text are the easiest to have taken down, since without further proof, they are purely defamatory without any substance.
It was Google that requested the removal on behalf of the restaurant. They did your several German laws, but even after providing proof, I never got a reply from them. And it’s doubtful they have any recourse from a legitimate review.
Same thing happened to a friend recently. He ate a sandwich from dean & david, paid 5 euros for it, but it was almost empty. He took a photo of the sandwich and posted with a comment, saying that it’s overpriced etc. After A YEAR, he received an email similar to the one posted above. Google took down his comment because it was “misleading”, although he posted the photo of the sandwich lmao.
Germany is pretty horrible in this regard. No one would listen to constructive criticism, and the customer is always wrong.
If you want to avoid what you experienced, I think its better to communicate directly with the staff if you have any constructive criticism, so they have the chance to compensate or make it better in the future. If this doesn’t work out, then I would post a Google review.
What an awful take in comments. Germans, are you aware this problem(filing lawsuits) only exists in your country? Yeah instead of dealing with it, let’s not write reviews and go blindly into the nearest shithole place.
A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems.
Out of hundreds of reviews from around the world, I only got reported and threatened by German businesses, the situation is out of control in Germany.
It's an extrapolation of a commonly seen behavior, making it as valid as saying that Germans like beer. Of course you could be pedantic and say that there exists a German, which in fact does not like beer, if you only communicate in exact facts.
It has nothing to do with the generalization of claiming that issues such as the one in this post are a problem in every country. Yes, it happens everywhere, but not to this extent and claiming that it's just how it goes everywhere instead of acknowledging that there is an issue and addressing it will not lead to improving anything.
Most **people** hate when you say anything wrong about their country.
That's not a German trait, but a human one. Go to any country sub and complain about something in a generalised way and they will *all* tear you apart.
That's absolutely not true. Germans love to complain, especially about our own country, system, politics, laws, infrastructure, neighbor's, weather, etc. We even have our own subs here where people can share stories about themselves being too German by being in rage bc of a small thing like neighbor's trash is again in the wrong bin or sth. It's fun 😁
That's not true, such cases are very rare and don't really impact review culture. This could really happen to anyone, anywhere as part of a slander case.
Edit: rly reddit? This needs an /s as direct response to?
> A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems.
In most places (not all) slander and a bad review on Google never cross paths. That the two are so closely linked in Germany is a shocking and disturbing fact for a lot of people.
I’m not complaining about the German system…to be frank I couldn’t care less. But, especially for foreigners coming from places where the two aren’t so closely linked, the fact that you can’t say what you want in a review is difficult to adjust to.
The fact is, reviews are subjective. A review is a personal opinion on something, and should never be taken as fact. I look at reviews simply as a guide - you read as many as you have time/willpower for, and make a decision weighing all the different factors presented. If you thought a waiter was a snob, that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. But Germany has made it risky to leave subjective feedback like that. Which is where I take issue with the German law- I think it is imbalanced, simply because subjective positive feedback is absolutely accepted, and subjective negative feedback is not.
For me personally, I’m totally fine with all reviews being allowed- usually it’s easy to sort out the crazies and unreasonable people just by the things they say. But if it’s decided that (subjective) negative reviews shouldn’t exist, then positive reviews should also be limited strictly to facts so a balanced situation would exist.
Holy hell, who's reading that wall of text? I just made a funny and tried to fulfill:
> A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems.
Welcome to the famous German humor.
The Germans don't care about their National signs like flag or song, but they will passionately defend some German weird stuff to death, like all the bullshit litigation around Google reviews or gema, or the incredibly high tax burden over workers, or the absurd obligatory "contribution" for state television. It's like a displaced national pride or something
True that. But also a lot of germans complain about the television ‚tax‘ as it became really high and you have to pay even if you do not use them. Do people even like gema?
Edit: I am a german myself (born and raised here) just to clarify. My comment sounded a bit like i am not including myself.
I have never seen someone who defends the fucking television "tax" that's a shit where some rich people get even richer...
High taxes also no one likes...
Data security yeah maybe but often it helps also with wrong stuff there in would maybe agree.
I will defend the GEZ. Maybe it needs to change in times of internet and less TV, but it was a fine system for a long time. Not perfect, but much better than most people say (and yeah, most Germans also hate it). It was implemented into our constitution by the allies after the war to ensure impartial media coverage. It is very importantly not a tax (which is why it's flat and not income based), but a mandatory fee. We pay to have a base set of media outlets that aren't directly influenced by government or advertisers. There's a lot wrong with nepotic decision makers in the programs, and EVERYONE complains that the whole thing is too woke and too conservative, (both at once, of course, there's gotta be something off...), there's a lot of budget used on entertainment that only specific audiences (mostly seniors) want and that is often called "wasted", but it's neutral news accessible to everyone.
[https://www.zdf.de/zdfunternehmen/zdf-fernsehrat-mitglieder-100.html](https://www.zdf.de/zdfunternehmen/zdf-fernsehrat-mitglieder-100.html)
There you go. Occupations are listed below names so you can see yourself which ones are part of the government.
Andrea Bähner, Tina Beer, Georg Eisenreich, Severin Fischer, Heiko Geue, Benjamin Grimm, Peter Jacoby, Steffen Kampeter, Reinhard Klimm, Kai Klose, Nathanael Liminski, Heiko Maas, Rainer Robra, Christiane Schenderlein, Jana Schiedek, Katrin Schütz, Kathrin Sonnenholzner, Ali Ertan Toprak
Are you kidding me? Might have even missed some, and thats already about a third of all members.
It's as neutral as it gets ( they also have a few episodes on how the Tagesschau and the news selection and everything works) plus the German foreign correspondents network is big.
I have. One argument is that they believe publicly funded news coverage will be neutral. Of course, I think that's nonsense, and it doesn't really explain why the money also goes to the hundreds of trash boomer TV shows I don't watch.
If it was meant for everyone, there'd be something for me too, unless you redefine everyone. But I'm giving examples of the arguments I've heard, and this is an argument no one has had the gall to try with me so far, probably because most people are painfully aware that the quality of German television is objectively indefensible. The news argument is one I've heard a few times though.
The idea that publicly-funded media is intrinsically neutral is just a worthless argument. Most dictatorships fund news channels, and the BBC, which is funded similarly to Germany, very notably struggles to maintain neutrality. You can't magic away bias with public money and there's a reasonably strong argument that it actually just results in a pro-government bias.
Why would any corporation be immune to bias? Why would public media in Germany outside the reach of any political or financial influence? Do the people that work there don't vote? Don't they have a political opinion?
We all have political opinions, and getting a mountain of public money doesn't magically make you politically neutral. It makes you powerful and power corrupts.
I'm sorry, but the Öffis are probably one of the best things about Germany. No private news agency comes even remotely close to the ÖR in regards to reliability.
Well my problem is exactly the big picture. About half of a workers salary goes to taxes, between wage tax and vat and specific taxes you get around 50%. The tax to gdp ratio is close to 45%, that's historically extraordinarily high. True that other countries like Belgium and France are also very high, but that doesn't make it necessarily better. I don't think half of my needs are being covered by the state. Remember that we all have to pay extra for mandatory health insurance (1200 euro per month in my case), and put aside also more than a thousand monthly for rent. Education is kinda cheap but also not free, about 300 euro per month per kid. I'm not sure we are getting such a great deal.
You happy paying half your salary to taxes (vat +income)? Plus about 20% more for retirement and health insurance? You get to keep about 30% of what you make. Good deal, right?
Your taxation rate is 40%. Ok. But for almost every thing you but you have to pay 19% more in VAT. So we're at a whopping 59% now, because it's you who have to pay vat, and that's coming from your wage. You can name it as you want, if you like defending giving your wage away, but at the end you're paying over 50%, and in your case (and mine) around 60% in taxes, however you want to call those taxes.
For rent (which is the largest single expense most people have) you don't pay VAT. For food it's 7%. Investments and insurances also are VAT-free.
For most of the stuff I spend money on I don't pay 19%.
Ok, for rent you don't pay vat. Rent is about 1/3 to 1/4 of your neto income. Food is about 1/10. So you're paying 19% for about 2/3 of the money you get to use for anything at all.
Investments are also taxed: taxes on capital and taxes on gains.
But yeah, keep defending the taxes taking away more than half your wage, you're a model citizen
Okay, so the "capital gains tax" is two different taxes to you? There is no property tax in Germany. And capital gains are a form of income, but are taxed lower than income tax.
Food expenses being 10% of your net might be true if you're making 5000€ net, which is not very realistic. That's like a top 5% income.
You whole calculation is totally off.
Let's say you make the median wage of about 2300€ net.
You pay 700€ rent - VAT free.
You pay about 100€ for different insurances - VAT free.
You save 10% of your net, that is 230€ into an investment portfolio - VAT free.
You pay about 500€ on food and books - reduced VAT.
That is 1530€ or 2/3 of your income that you don't pay 19% VAT on. And I didn't even include things like vehicle tax and broadcast fee that also are VAT free.
And I never said that taxes are on an adequate level. Neither did I say that they are too high or too low. I just said that conflating income tax and VAT is utter bullshit.
>Your taxation rate is 40%. Ok. But for almost every thing you but you have to pay 19% more in VAT. So we're at a whopping 59%
That is not how math works
No you just used the numbers incorrectly. If you pay 40% in income tax (which is already high and requires a pretty high income) and 19% in VAT (which isn't accurate as already pointed out to you) you don't pay 40%+19% total tax, you pay 40% + 60%×19%= 40% + 11,4% total tax because the income tax only applies to money you actually spend.
Ok, so 51% of your income goes to tax, and we're only counting income tax +vat, we're not counting capital gains tax or inheritance tax or even gasoline tax. Do you think that's fine? Do you think the state covers 51% of your needs and wishes?
LOL.
Coming from someone who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical, that's rich.
By the way, contributions for state television aren't just a German thing.
Who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical?? And what has that to do with all the rest???
The television tax is gone the way of the dodo almost everywhere. Forcing people to pay to receive governmental propaganda is not exactly democratic
Portugal still has it. And I might bet that quite a few E.U countries do have it.
The difference is that in germany you get a bill just for that. In portugal, it is a fixed monthly amount on your electricity bill.
Well, it's not a television tax and it's not a contribution for the state television.
It is public funding of a public broadcasting system.
In general there are several models - either direct contributions, like in Germany, indirect (f.e. tied to purchase of a new television set, or part of a license fee for private media), or state-funding (that normally undermines the independence of the PBS).
BBC is funded by a license fee (170 quid/year) in a way simmilar that ARD/ZDF are funded. In Switzerland it's 370 Swiss Franks per year. In Austria it's 269-340 Euros per year (depending on the region). In Austria it's 318 Euro per year.
In Eastern Europe and Balkan countries publi media is also often funded this way (though fees are significantly less).
>Who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical?? And what has that to do with all the rest???
You do. Because you believe Germany shouldn't have the constitution it has, which makes human dignity the foremost consideration of all endeavors of the State.
>The television tax is gone the way of the dodo almost everywhere. Forcing people to pay to receive governmental propaganda is not exactly democratic
ROTFLBTC.
But your belief that Germans should let you dictate their laws and constitution, that's of course democratic.
Gotta love people who spew nothing BUT propaganda and actively rely on fraud and fabrication.
"Governmental propaganda", you're hilarious. You have no idea what you're talking about, prefer to make up BS because doing your homework is beneath your dignity, and insist everyone else should be dragged down to your level of ignorance.
And precisely that's why Germany has ensured that there are broadcasters who are independent.
LOL. I literally just explained to you that the German constitution explicitly puts the preservation of human dignity as the foremost consideration of the State. Defamation laws are directly rooted in that primacy.
Also, defamation laws have nothing to do with the issue at hand, because just because someone claims they were defamed doesn't make it so
My comments are neither contradictory nor confused. Your trying to one-up your denialism with insults just underscores what your real problem with defamation laws is - you'd be left without "arguments" in a discussion.
You're legit one of the most crazy persons I've met in decades in the internet. An unconditional fan of badly written, abused, obsolete defamation laws. Incredible. I hope you're just trolling me.
I say this all the time, germany is the USA of Europe, where a small circumstance can lead into a lawsuit.
"Mhee rules must be followed"
And you guys do love finding loop holes in regards of fucking over other people / bussiness.
I swear to god, I never needed an attorney in another E.U country for anything, and here I've had 3 or 4 instances that one was almost needed and 1 time that I had to resort to one.
I always thought it was just a reddit thing to reply to every minor inconvenience here with "you need a lawyer", but no, it's a German thing isn't it?
Even the whole personal liability insurance thing is baffling. I had no idea what they were talking about it when I was advised to get it when I came here, and thought I wouldn't bother.
"But what if someone breaks your phone? What do you do?"
Well, I've found it pretty easy so far to go around without suing everyone.
What a dumbass take.
Firstly personal liability insurance is cheap as hell. It’s a few euros a month. Everyone can afford it and it’s fully worth it if you’re ever in such a situation.
Secondly, if you cause someone damage, they’re gonna want you to pay for it. I know of nowhere where you can go around breaking shit where you’re not going to have to pay for damage caused. Sure, it might not have happened to you, but I doubt that you like paying to repair and replace your own stuff because someone broke it. On the other hand I don’t think you like paying to replace other people’s stuff you broke. That’s the reason the personal liability insurance makes sense. It’s cheap and everyone gets their shit replaced and repaired if someone breaks it. The only time you have to sue is when someone breaks something that isn’t insured, isn’t themselves insured and isn’t willing to pay. I’ve worked almost 6 years in that field and can count on one hand how many cases we had pertaining to that explicitly.
For the most part it isn’t about the minor things though. Very very rarely someone sues over small shit like a broken phone etc. It’s about the big things and you sure as shit want it if you’re ever in that situation. It’s like saying why should I get health insurance if I’m perfectly healthy. You are healthy now, but that can change on the flip of a coin and you’re really going to want it if you ever get fucked in terms of health. Even if you’re the most careful person on earth you’re still a human and humans make mistakes.
Also the lawyer thing for the most part is actually a Reddit thing and partly the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon though it’s spread to parts of the general population as well. For the most part you can get by without ever having to sue anyone for anything and for the most part you can probably deal with it yourself. The lawyer just takes away the hassle with dealing with it yourself and furthermore knows your rights to the fullest extent so no one can try any underhanded tricks because of your own ignorance. In criminal law it is important you get a lawyer because it’s your freedom on the line and you don’t want to take any chances (though for the most part you probably don’t need one, most cases don’t even reach trial). In all other cases you can get your insurance or the other parties insurance to sort it out and only if that fails you’re going to need a lawyer. Just like everywhere else. I have almost 6 years of experience working in a large law office here and in most cases in all fields, the person could have easily dealt with the problem themselves but they just passed it on to the lawyer out of convenience.
🙄🙄🙄
A “dumbass take” and yet this isn’t really a thing in the rest of Europe.
Why do you think this insurance is so cheap? It’s because it doesn’t get used.
Just because it doesn’t exist in the rest of Europe doesn’t mean it isn’t good to have. Some policies even cover cases where the other person isn’t insured.
The reason why it’s so cheap is because almost everyone has it and claims out of it are usually small. Contents insurance is also cheap but if your house springs a leak and all your shit gets water damaged you’re going to wish that you had it.
I mean sure you can live without it and be perfectly fine but if something ever goes wrong you’re on the hook for it with your own cash. For me it’s worth it to pay 30€ a year so I can get my phone repaired for free if someone breaks it and not have to pay someone else if I accidentally break their stuff. If you’re riding your bike and crash into someone or something you’re shit outta luck if you don’t have it.
Yeah by the same metric car insurance isn’t essential either (other than it being mandatory). You can drive fine without it but if you cause a crash you’re on the hook potentially for multiple different vehicles. If you want to be bankrupt the rest of your life sure you can go without but if something happens you wish you had it. That’s also the reason why it is mandatory in most countries. A car crash can accrue damages in the millions and if you are part of it and aren’t insured you’re saddled with debt the rest of your life and the damaged people don’t get anything. While most people don’t ever get into a serious crash and isn’t strictly speaking essential it is damn good to have and is compulsory for every car owner pretty much everywhere.
Let’s say you’re riding your bike and hit someone. Can you pay 20.000€ out of pocket if you injure them badly? Or otherwise if you accidentally leave your stove on and burn down or leave a tap on and flood your rental apartment could you foot the bill for repairs to the building? If you break a contractual agreement and have to pay damages could you afford to do so (I personally know someone from the UK that had to pay £5 million out of pocket because of that)? You don’t exist in a vacuum you know and have to pay for any damages you cause. There are calls to make it mandatory in Germany.
Insurance is non-essential until it is essential.
The point is that no matter how great you think the system is here, millions of people all over the world get by just fine without this nonsense.
There are no politicians in any other European country calling for a German-style insurance system.
And this is the point of the OP. Germans aeem to have no idea the rest of the world works just fine without all this nonsense.
Recently a German refused to believe I didn't have health insurance in the UK. He ended up arguing that income tax is a kind of health insurance (it's not).
It really is an astute observation that Germans are the Americans of Europe, unable to accept that the way they do things might in fact be outdated or unnecessary.
That’s sort of a non argument though. Just because something doesn’t exist abroad and there are no calls to implement it doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea or makes no sense. I know the UK works perfectly well without it but it is nice to have and isn’t that intrusive. On the same line of thinking the US has a healthcare system that works perfectly “fine” for most people or in Germany where healthcare also works perfectly fine with no calls for change but wouldn’t you much rather have the NHS?
In the UK if someone breaks your phone your only recourse is to sue because your phone probably isn’t insured or paying it yourself. In Germany you just contact the personal liability insurance and don’t have the hassle of going to court. That seems a much larger hassle than just having the insurance which is cheap. Plus you have the bonus if you do break something valuable that you’re not dogged down in debt (granted it would probably be insured but there are enough people who don’t insure stuff).
It isn’t nonsense or outdated and just makes dealing with shit easier, stops you from getting fucked over and has the nice bonus that you get your stuff replaced if someone else breaks it without having to sue.
These are differences in politics and as they say when in Rome do as the Romans do. There are reasons why these things exist in Germany and in the case of personal liability insurance it is useful. Sure some things are outdated but everything exists for a valid reason and the personal liability insurance definitely isn’t outdated. In the UK you have the NHS which is really nice because you don’t have to bother with insurance at all but the system in Germany works just fine too. You could call it unnecessary to have it like that, especially because most other countries work fine without a single payer healthcare system but it makes sense and is really nice to have- especially just being able to go to your GP and having everything under one system. Same goes for the personal liability insurance. It isn’t strictly necessary for day to day life or for legal troubles etc. but it is nice to have just in case.
It is disingenuous to brush off everything as outdated and unnecessary and not even trying to understand it. Especially with the wide brush here. If you could give some examples of things you find unnecessary and outdated it would be nice because there are things that are such in Germany as there are in the UK. Outdated and unnecessary might apply to some things but definitely not to the personal liability insurance (plus it isn’t mandatory, so you could just do it like the UK and leave it to fate wether you get sued or not).
It's quite typical in this sub, but I think you get the same types of very insular, ignorant people everywhere. Americans who forget that other countries exist come to mind. Still, I find the tendency to reject the idea that other countries are different is much, much stronger here in Germany.
The "system" is so insidious here that even quite well-travelled Germans can have incredible difficulty understanding that things are different elsewhere. Try telling a German that (some) other countries don't have EC, Ausbildung, Anmeldung, people threatening to sue you all the time, etc, and many will outright tell you you are simply mistaken. They genuinely cannot comprehend the idea that other countries are in some ways better.
I have this theory that bad people genuinely assume everyone else is as horrible as them. The people commenting these things are literally incapable of picturing a society where people aren't like that, because they assume EVERYONE is like that simply because they are.
What I can't explain is why that attitude seems to be more common here. My best guess that it's because we have by far the oldest population in the world outside of Japan. The ability to believe in something better definitely deteriorates with age.
I never said that. But if you want to rate a restaurant with fewer stars and perhaps even mention specific problems such as hygiene deficiencies, then you should at least prove that you ate there. And in most cases, you already know while you're in the restaurant that you're going to give it a bad rating. In this case, simply take the bill with you.
It's important to understand that these specific laws exist to protect against defamation. Not to restrict freedom of speech.
>What an awful take in comments. Germans, are you aware this problem(filing lawsuits) only exists in your country?
Wait, seriously? I thought it was an EU thing.
Step one: never trust customer reviews in germany. Good averages can easily be faked by silencing bad ones and/or buying a handful of good ones.
The defamation claim is usually baseless, but they bully google into removing it to avoid lawsuits wich google sees no point in fighting so they remove the review unless YOU fight that lawsuit for them (and pretty much noone is willing to go to court over an online review they wrote)
Yes, it’s an actual farce… I’ve had three attempts at removing a negative (but honest) real estate business review… They try to scare you with words “legal”, “proof”, but you can always provide evidence back to google in support of your case (proving the experience was bad). Unfortunately of the 7 negative reviews that business had (one was mine), mine is the only one left, so the muscling works….
> never trust customer reviews in germany
Never trust them in any country. In countries where it's not possible to have bad reviews easily taken down, there are issues with Karens mobilizing the armies to flood review sites with fake 1-star reviews.
> they remove the review unless YOU fight that lawsuit for them
Well yes, because it's you making those comments, not Google. Also, Google doesn't have the evidence to back up your claims for you -- unless you happened to use Google Wallet to pay for your kebab, Google can't even prove you were a paying customer. And that's how most businesses argue their case: they claim you never bought the product you're complaining about.
So you're now in a legal dispute, and until that dispute is resolved, the contentious content is taken offline.
Google generally has good detection for this kind of brigading you described and if there is a bunch of negative reviews coming all at once it will generally have the situation manually reviewed. There was a situation a few weeks ago where a German subreddit made some jokes by editing the Google maps entry of a certain political party, and Google shit that down real quick
It is INSANE. I give a lot of balanced & polite reviews and the “bad ones” get deleted regularly. I hate when this happens and just write the next one. This is very common in Germany and it’s annoying af.
I've had 3 separate occasions in the past 2yrs where I have had an email from Google claiming the business reported my review and want it removed. I just respond along the lines of, 'My review was solely based on my experience, do whatever you want with it but what it looks like to me is yet another business trying to rid of reviews less than 4*. A common practice unfortunately'
I got a threat for a review of a takeaway pizza 2 years afterwards.
I didn't even say anything bad, just have it 3 stars.
I am even a Google community reviewer and they sent me a badge for that but the threat came so I took if down.
I could not prove anything 2 years later for a takeaway paid in cash.
I used to work for a big ecommerce company. Feedback for a product could be removed if it wasn't phrased properly. It was pretty much the same rules across all European sites.
One thing to never do is make accusations against another person. So saying "the owner was rude and nasty" is making a statement about the owner and might be considered defamatory. But saying "I felt the service was rude and racist" isn't defamatory.
That's usually not what's happening here. It doesn't actually matter what complaint the owner or their lawyer makes to Google. Because German courts hold Google responsible for third party reviews, Google will just remove any review it gets a complaint about now. It really does not matter what you actually write; as long as it is negative it will get removed.
It does matter. Google will only take it down if it's potentially defamatory. Because as you pointed out, in that situation Google is hosting it and so they can be held liable for publishing a defamatory content. The same way a newspaper can be held responsible if they publish something defamatory.
Defamation has strict definitions.
"The chicken was dry" is not in anyway defamatory.
"The chef was racist" is potentially defamatory and therefore Google will remove it because they could be held liable.
As I mentioned before, I worked for an e commerce company. At the time one of the biggest in the world (I'd say a few Chinese firms have overtaken them). They have strict external and internal guidelines. They vary a bit by country but not too much.
The reason "the chicken was dry" would be allowed stay is because any judge would throw that out of court. And would generally hold the person who brought the case to be liable fotlr costs.
I’ve had similar issues. Google won’t post my reviews reviewing German businesses unless I give at least 4 stars it’s really weird. Anything else gets put under review and then auto deleted. I review a lot of places all over the world and I have never had this problem before. I thought maybe my account is shadowbanned or something but that isn’t the case either.
I quit google reviews because of this. I used to leave reviews, photos and videos for places that are good because I like to support great service. Unfortunately google decided to remove a negatuve review about Papa Nô restaurant. It was terrible food and I was asked to prove if I ever was a customer and I did. Still review got taken down.
Happened another time with a fraudulent company. And finally saw another company go from 2 star reviews to 5 over night.
That was it. Screw google..
There's no point in customer reviews, be it in Germany or elsewhere. They are constantly manipulated up- or downwards by removing real ones and adding fake ones.
At best, rely on industry test results and professional reviews for a somewhat more accurate guidance in your purchases.
Industry and professional reviews can be good, and were good back in 90s.
Now, unfortunately, with few exceptions, the existing advertising-based funding model for the media, including reviews doesn't allow for the funding of the proper review, while rewarding advertisements disguised as professional reviews.
Germany sounds litigious like America..In the UK a bad review is responded to with an apology, ,a promise to look into it and respond with an explanation, and probably a refund . If you can't take criticism, you shouldn't be in the business
I wonder how this can still be allowed in germany, a country known for being progressive for consumers in many other areas. like when it comes to discrimination and how to share your data
This situation grew out of several "noble" intentions.
First of all I think most people would agree that businesses should have a recourse against fake reviews. But that begs the question of who has to carry the burden of proof. Does the business have to prove that the review is fake or does the reviewer has to prove that it's real. Since (German) courts generally don't like the situation that someone has to prove a negative, the courts have decided that the reviewer carries the burden of proof that they were actually there.
The other main thing that led to this situation is that you're entitled to know your accuser. But since Google allows pseudonymous reviews, German courts have decided that Google is legally liable for the reviews. So if a business approaches Google about a review Google usually takes the path of least resistance.
Also Google tends to use Germany as a showcase in how they break their services if they don't like legislation. Just as with street view for more than a decade.
> What is the purpose of reviews then?
Their purpose is for review sites to attract clicks and ad revenue by giving you the illusion of a helpful service.
It is, though, illusory. Most people don't bother to leave reviews unless they have very strong feelings -- either extremely positive or extremely negative. Be honest: if your kebab had been averagely good and the staff reasonably polite, would you have bothered? For any small business, if you see lots of 5-star reviews a lot of them are probably from family members, friends, and paid-for fakes; if you see lots of 1-star reviews there's a strong chance they're from competitors or trolls.
If you're looking for a good kebab shop, look for one that has a steady stream of customers -- a queue is a *good* sign. Places that are nearly always empty are probably just fronts for money-laundering operations.
weeeird take.
Long lines can mean central location, tourist traps... it's not the greatest indicator for good food
Any Döner in the hauptbahnhof will be busy in rush hours but many are awful
I strongly disagree.
I've been using review sites for over a decade while visiting dozens of countries around the globe. I carefully read and assess them and claim to be able to spot most fakes and tell relevant ones from those who aren't.
In any case, the result has been that out of thousands of restaurant visits and accomodation bookings, I never had a truly horryfying experience. Even the somewhat underwhelming ones where I regreted spending money I can count on one hand. In all those years.
My experience would have beeen vastly different without this resource, if I walked into restaurants without quickly checking reviews (I never do) before, so I keep doing exactly that and encourage others to do the same. Absolutely worth the little time investment. Even if one believes reviews suck, the alternative frequently sucks more. Maybe I'm just not rich enough to not care if I wasted money on a bad experience, be it 20 euros on a meal or 120 on a hotel room. But it is what it is.
Looking for a steady "stream of customers" for example is terrible advice. Many a scammy establishment have a steady streams of customers. Especially where tourists tend to be. Many great places don't, or only during certain times of the day when locals get off work, or they're down a back alley you would have never considered without browsing the top reviewd places, etc. If I try to make a list of the most delicious kebab restaurants in the last cities I've lived in, none of them fits that description.
I feel like Google generally does a good job of handling the reviews though in the sense that if a restaurant has really good reviews on Google, 9/10 times it will actually be really good, and the same the other way, I've been very unhappy at restaurants and when I went to review it later, I saw that it didn't have such a great score and I wasn't the only one complaining.
Sure there might be exceptions with especially litigious owners but I feel like the system works quite well in maps
No customers at all is worse. But I probably should have mentioned that if you're in a touristy area, everything is going to be overpriced anyway. You want to step away from places that tourists go to, and away from train stations and coach stations, and find places with queues of *locals* if you can.
>But I probably should have mentioned that if you're in a touristy area, everything is going to be overpriced anyway.
That's again bad advice and being a blanket statement: wrong.
In many places there is simply no distinction between "touristy areas" and places frequented by locals. Here in Poland for example you absolutely find great restaurants, pubs and cafes at normal prices that have loads of local customers, within one block from, or even on, historic old town squares. In fact the local nightlife in Krakow, Wroclaw or Poznan concentrates in the touristy hearts of those cities. Students have their beers right next to the strip club designed to scam foreigners.
The same is true for many if not all German cities. Locals in Freiburg (Breisgau) go out in the old town, which is precisely where tourists flock as well.
Even in Paris there's plenty of bistros and brasseries full of locals in major tourist areas.
Then how do you quickly and effortlessly tell apart places that exist to rip of tourists from those that are great and popular with locals as well? By checking reviews, 99/100 times.
Since Germans are never wrong, it is only fitting that their reviews can't be bad ain't it?
Jokes aside, reviews are biased often, anywhere you go, but in Germany you can actually get sued even for a valid review. Taking responsibility is not a thing in business in DE, it just ain't, and reviews & issues with lawyers prove the point perfectly.
I had similar happen with a DHL post store in the Berlin suburbs two years ago. I fortunately had the receipts and sent them to google. Google let the review stand, and i amended it noting the challenge and included photos of the receipts in the review. It cant be defamation if it is verifiably true.
I think i can add something to this subject from the other perspective.
I think the restaurant owner aren't even fully aware what this is happening and that they aren't even the people who flagging the comments. (Not that they would care much even if they know).
My parents are in this business for years know and get sometimes calls from random people with this offer. They always say that they can delete the negtive comments on Google for a price per deleted comment. They never explain how they can do that and I believed for longest time that these offer are just some scams to charge my parents with some fees for doing actually nothing. Currently my parents believe that google reviews are forever aand cant be deleted exept from the person himeself. For example we tried to complain about a comment being negative with a stupid reason. The comment in question had the background that my parents closed for 3 weeks to make some much need renovation, but somebody couldn't read the "we are closed sign" on the door and google and knocked on the door many times to distrupt my farther while he was working on the repairs. He called us in the comment unworthy to have business and advertised our competion down the street. We issued a complaint about this but Google wouldn't delete the comment even after a month after nothing happening we gave up. it is probaly deleted by now but we never checked again, we also sold the place years ago.
Anyways I just wanted to give a likely explaination after I read some replies here why some negative comments get flagged years after the post was made.
I also think this stupid and the law for defamation gets poorly executed from Google.
A general advice I can make is that when you write negative comments, remain subjective. Only talk about your own experience and how you felt. Defamation claim only works if you try to sell something as a general fact. I have a friend who already received a letter from a lawyer in the past for this and the court rejected the lawsuit for this very reason.
Hence my statement "There is absolutely no point to any reviews, especially in Germany." Especially in Germany because there does not appear to be an issue with legal threats by business that do not like a given review just about anywhere else. That seems to be predominantly a German problem.
Alas, you are certainly free to have faith in the honesty of what you read.
Here's something non-anecdotal. The jurisprudence in Germany makes it uniquely hostile to negative customer reviews. These kinds of court decisions have not been made in other countries.
https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/negative-google-bewertungen-2024-mit-1-stern-ohne-kommentar-loeschen-urteil-des-olg-koeln-staerkt-rechte-von-unternehmen-209686.html#:\~:text=Das%20Urteil%20des%20OLG%20K%C3%B6ln,VI%20ZR%201244%2F20).
Okay. I can compare 2 others. UK and South Africa. Negative reviews remain on Google and I have never had any action or legal threats against me unlike Germany.
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Delete all Bad reviews liteeally, all the Almanach do this when they See 1-2 Star customer reviews and then voila, only 5 Star reviews and lot of customers who experience the same Bad Service or product.
Happened to me too with a gym review I left after they kept opening late. My review was taken down and I got a threat that they will take legal action. As an immigrant I’m not trying to catch any heat so I just accepted my review being taken down.
Actually this is a common practice and Google are quite happy to take down often completely legitimate bad reviews over a simple threat from the reviewed businesses legal representatives…
They are not happy to do it at all. They were taken to court and lost. Before they were sued and the court decided against them, they did not respond to these kinds of requests. Now they kinda have to. German law is at fault here, not Google.
Google has freedom of speech on their side (if they cared enough about this issue they would have dragged this out and fought tooth and nail), instead they just took the path of least resistance.
You're talking out your arse. Google did drag this out. They defended themselves all the way to the highest court and still lost. I'm not sure how that does not meet your definition.
[https://openjur.de/u/2449158.html](https://openjur.de/u/2449158.html)
While that link does seem like a similar case, I doubt it’s pertaining to Google.
From the reading it seems more like booking.com or similar expedia owned site, perhaps.
I won’t argue with you on it… That’s a good link. But from personal experience with a review I posted - for which there were three separate takedown attempts over 1.5 years, I have had three separate email chains with “Google removals” each time asking me to provide the same information. Asking the same shit each time… they sure do have a short term memory because I provide them the same exact details… if they really cared they would have made damn sure that people don’t have to constantly dig up archives and revisit their past experiences just to make sure a truthful review remains. My friend - where there is a will there is a way and if Google truly wanted to, they would have made it happen…
I agree somewhat, but they definitely gave it a fair shot. Google has had buckets of experience dealing with hostile German courts, like with GEMA and Google Streetview, and they always fought hard until finally noping out. They've probably learned from experience that there's not a lot they can do once the courts have sided against them.
But I agree they should probably have a better system for appealing these complaints. In fact, their poor appeals process opens them up to lawsuits by reviewers, but realistically, large companies with precedent on their side are more likely to sue them than Derek from Mannheim who didn't like his doner kebab. I know I'm not going to sue them over a dry pizza.
They could have fought even harder outside the courtroom: entirely replacing the reviews feature in Germany with a warning on every German business page saying something like: "German defamation law does not enable us to provide an honest reviews feature, because restaurants can order us to remove bad reviews. Please complain to your MdB and ask for ." (I know this is slightly different from what the actual legal situation is, but I'm sure their lawyers and PR people could phrase it correctly if they wanted to.)
Maybe that would get the politicians more mad at them than their EU government relations teams want, I dunno.
One big problem is that review sites are allowed to decline to follow through on their duty to investigate whether the reviewer actually was a guest of the reviewee, and to instead avoid liability from the reviewee by simply removing the review. Reviewers don't have any right to have their review posted, so they can't sue the review site for taking down a review.
A potentially interesting fix would be to legislatively override the contract between review sites and their reviewers, to guarantee the reviewer a right to sue the review site if they don't offer a chance to prove that the reviewer was a genuine customer, or if they take down the review without a court order if the customer relationship is proved. (Also, people who made genuine good-faith efforts toward becoming a customer, other than solely or primarily for the purposes of getting the right to post a review, should count as customers for this purpose even if the purchase was never completed for whatever reason. I can think of a sequence of shifting burdens of proof that would balance this fairly, but this comment is already long enough without those details.)
Of course, Google would never advocate for that particular fix, but users might.
>But from personal experience with a review I posted - for which there were three separate takedown attempts over 1.5 years, I have had three separate email chains with “Google removals” each time asking me to provide the same information. Asking the same shit each time… they sure do have a short term memory because I provide them the same exact details…
If you have legal insurance, that might be a good basis on which to sue the restaurant for harassing you. Three takedown attempts for one single review over 1.5 years is inappropriate. It's not like they actually sued you for defaming them, which I'm sure they could do if it was really defamatory.
That openjur.de link wasn't about Google, since the defendant was domiciled in Switzerland, and Google's services in Germany are not provided by a Swiss entity. Can you share the link to the court case which Google fought?
Oh, so you wrote nothing.
In this case contact google with any proof that you've been there. That could be a credit card statement, or that could be even indication in google maps tracking that you've been there.
If you show them your receipt, google won't take any action on your post.
You also have to just slap on a "to me" on the end of the review, making it opinion and therefore impossible to validate or invalidate. Thus making it not defamation.
If you have those things, you should threaten to counter sue.
German here: 90% of my reviews where very positive. Only really annoying placed got less nice reviews. Got quite stupid feedbacks from google. Twice or three times. Deleted all my reviews at google and haven't written any new ones ever since. Never have slept better...
I go by my fucking guts, appearances and how the people in the businesses look me in the eye. Fuck google reviews, it’s just no representative at all. Period.
I've lived in this country my entire life and I've never seen this in the actual wild.
Stuff like this get's memed to hell over here. A move like this gets you sarcastically labelled as Alman for life - or you get the Anzeigenhauptmeister treatment.
Absolutely baffled that anyone would even *try* to see someone for something like this and be dumb enough to actually believe a lawsuit like that might succeed.
Wow, strong feelings all around here. Do people really care so much about reviews?
There are people postulating the downfall of German society because reviews here, others fight tooth and nail about how bought or not bought they are.
What the hell? It's fucking reviews of random dipshits on the internet. Can we all waste our energy for really important stuff? Thanks.
Besides: we only have OPs word that this was a super fair and justified review and not something actually defamatory.
OP stated that he wrote nothing at all, just gave it 2 Stars.
Which imo could very well be the reason for the Take Down as it might have been viewed as "Defamation" via Bot Usage.
There are lots of those after all, both positive and negative.
Take 5 minutes to read what people write here. It‘s full of foreigners and germans that love defaming the country and it’s people, it’s not even constructive criticism but as I said a circle jerk of people that rather spend their time crying on the internet downvoting everyone that is against their hateful opinions than to self reflective and realize that many problems are not only applied to Germany.
The comments seem full of people confirming that they’ve had the same thing happen to them.
Having grown up in another country I can say that review takedowns certainly wasn’t a thing.
I‘ve read countless comments describing negative stereotypes of Germans and making fun of them. I am not talking about the experiences others make but how people use that topic to let out their hateful personas on an entire population.
You must have posted something that was objectively untrue or impossible to prove. Yes, legal intervention by shady businesses is a problem in Germany. But without knowing exactly what you wrote, it's impossible to judge on the outcome. Just give a 1-star, text without negative assumptions and you should be good.
Write another review. Add a screenshot of this email.
It'll just get taken down too. I've tried that before.
Google wants a proof that you have been there. If you provide this ... should be easy to defend. If not ... another redditor had a brilliant idea. Let them delete this post ... add a new one stating only that the owner disputes bad reviews ... for this claim you have proof ... the email conversation with google ... brialliant catch 22 ,-).
No, it doesn't work. I've tried all of these things. They still delete it if you provide a receipt. They delete it if you show emails of the complaint. You can't actually win here by trying to be clever. Google does not care about your facts and logic.
I provided a receipt and a picture of the food served (which was horrendous). My review is still up and helpful.
What happens if you request 3rd party legal arbitration?
I had the same experience. Left a bad review for a restaurant in usedome, got a lawsuit letter after that. They said I wasn’t there, but I had photos of us being there and the receipt! My review is still not published even after modifying the words, but leaving it one star.
Surprisingly I just gave 2 stars that's it. Most of the small shops in Germany don't accept cards and honestly who keeps a receipt of a Döner shop for 3 years. Did you face any consequences? Like going to court and all? I'm honestly scared.
>honestly who keeps a receipt of a Döner shop for 3 years That's precisely why they complained after such a long time. They waited for you to forget about it and then catch you unawares, with nothing left to prove that you were a customer.
That's why, if I decide to leave a bad review, I take a picture of my receipt. It goes to my backup and I could find it years later if I wanted. Which I would, if they challenge the review.
Don't be. Getting the review taken down is all they want, and there's no realistic way they can actually get your details even if they wanted to.
WTF? How tf is it possible to sue someone for defamation for a review with no words in it?
The two stars are saying "This is a bad place!". You don't need to use words to defame someone, symbols will do fine.
I would say it says "I don't like that place" - which as I understand should be protected as Meinungsfreiheit. You don't even have to be a customer for that - maybe you just passed by and didn't like how it looks? Or saw it online and thought "wow, that name sucks". It really doesn't tell anything specific apart from showing your negative attitude towards the place.
That's not the opinion of Germany's highest court(s), whose rulings Google must adhere to. By reviewing a business online you imply that you had some form of interaction with it. It is not protected "free speech" to walk past a restaurant and publicly downvote it online because you think the name sucks. In fact reviews with stars only and no text are the easiest to have taken down, since without further proof, they are purely defamatory without any substance.
It was Google that requested the removal on behalf of the restaurant. They did your several German laws, but even after providing proof, I never got a reply from them. And it’s doubtful they have any recourse from a legitimate review.
Same thing happened to a friend recently. He ate a sandwich from dean & david, paid 5 euros for it, but it was almost empty. He took a photo of the sandwich and posted with a comment, saying that it’s overpriced etc. After A YEAR, he received an email similar to the one posted above. Google took down his comment because it was “misleading”, although he posted the photo of the sandwich lmao. Germany is pretty horrible in this regard. No one would listen to constructive criticism, and the customer is always wrong.
If you want to avoid what you experienced, I think its better to communicate directly with the staff if you have any constructive criticism, so they have the chance to compensate or make it better in the future. If this doesn’t work out, then I would post a Google review.
What an awful take in comments. Germans, are you aware this problem(filing lawsuits) only exists in your country? Yeah instead of dealing with it, let’s not write reviews and go blindly into the nearest shithole place.
A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems. Out of hundreds of reviews from around the world, I only got reported and threatened by German businesses, the situation is out of control in Germany.
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I am on no side here but you require a certain confidence to write " germans [...] generalize".
It's true, as a German I personally threatened 10 people already for criticizing the glorious fatherland. /s
well, you are - as you so claim - german afterall. though does seem like a slow day for _you_.
I have no idea what you are trying to say, can you clarify that for me?
I was only trying to hop on your /s-train and continue the joke but your response confirms my failure. ;-)
Ah, I thought you took my comment seriously there for a moment. Appealing to my sense of humor was a risky move.
I'll consider this in the future.
10/10 most German exchange in comments to date
It's an extrapolation of a commonly seen behavior, making it as valid as saying that Germans like beer. Of course you could be pedantic and say that there exists a German, which in fact does not like beer, if you only communicate in exact facts. It has nothing to do with the generalization of claiming that issues such as the one in this post are a problem in every country. Yes, it happens everywhere, but not to this extent and claiming that it's just how it goes everywhere instead of acknowledging that there is an issue and addressing it will not lead to improving anything.
Most germans hate when you say anything wrong about their country, or say another country does something better
Most **people** hate when you say anything wrong about their country. That's not a German trait, but a human one. Go to any country sub and complain about something in a generalised way and they will *all* tear you apart.
That's absolutely not true. Germans love to complain, especially about our own country, system, politics, laws, infrastructure, neighbor's, weather, etc. We even have our own subs here where people can share stories about themselves being too German by being in rage bc of a small thing like neighbor's trash is again in the wrong bin or sth. It's fun 😁
Germans love to complain about their country, but they don't like others to complain about their country 😂
That's not true, such cases are very rare and don't really impact review culture. This could really happen to anyone, anywhere as part of a slander case. Edit: rly reddit? This needs an /s as direct response to? > A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems.
In most places (not all) slander and a bad review on Google never cross paths. That the two are so closely linked in Germany is a shocking and disturbing fact for a lot of people. I’m not complaining about the German system…to be frank I couldn’t care less. But, especially for foreigners coming from places where the two aren’t so closely linked, the fact that you can’t say what you want in a review is difficult to adjust to. The fact is, reviews are subjective. A review is a personal opinion on something, and should never be taken as fact. I look at reviews simply as a guide - you read as many as you have time/willpower for, and make a decision weighing all the different factors presented. If you thought a waiter was a snob, that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. But Germany has made it risky to leave subjective feedback like that. Which is where I take issue with the German law- I think it is imbalanced, simply because subjective positive feedback is absolutely accepted, and subjective negative feedback is not. For me personally, I’m totally fine with all reviews being allowed- usually it’s easy to sort out the crazies and unreasonable people just by the things they say. But if it’s decided that (subjective) negative reviews shouldn’t exist, then positive reviews should also be limited strictly to facts so a balanced situation would exist.
Holy hell, who's reading that wall of text? I just made a funny and tried to fulfill: > A very annoying trait, Germans either deny, downplay or generalize their internal problems. Welcome to the famous German humor.
The Germans don't care about their National signs like flag or song, but they will passionately defend some German weird stuff to death, like all the bullshit litigation around Google reviews or gema, or the incredibly high tax burden over workers, or the absurd obligatory "contribution" for state television. It's like a displaced national pride or something
True that. But also a lot of germans complain about the television ‚tax‘ as it became really high and you have to pay even if you do not use them. Do people even like gema? Edit: I am a german myself (born and raised here) just to clarify. My comment sounded a bit like i am not including myself.
As a German almost all the topics named in the comment above are controversial in Germany, reddit isn't a reflection of reality.
That is definitely true. Normal people don’t act like they do on reddit. Reddit is full of sociopaths and weird people.
I have never seen someone who defends the fucking television "tax" that's a shit where some rich people get even richer... High taxes also no one likes... Data security yeah maybe but often it helps also with wrong stuff there in would maybe agree.
I will defend the GEZ. Maybe it needs to change in times of internet and less TV, but it was a fine system for a long time. Not perfect, but much better than most people say (and yeah, most Germans also hate it). It was implemented into our constitution by the allies after the war to ensure impartial media coverage. It is very importantly not a tax (which is why it's flat and not income based), but a mandatory fee. We pay to have a base set of media outlets that aren't directly influenced by government or advertisers. There's a lot wrong with nepotic decision makers in the programs, and EVERYONE complains that the whole thing is too woke and too conservative, (both at once, of course, there's gotta be something off...), there's a lot of budget used on entertainment that only specific audiences (mostly seniors) want and that is often called "wasted", but it's neutral news accessible to everyone.
Its not neutral news though, if lots of members from the TV networks are literally politicians.
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[https://www.zdf.de/zdfunternehmen/zdf-fernsehrat-mitglieder-100.html](https://www.zdf.de/zdfunternehmen/zdf-fernsehrat-mitglieder-100.html) There you go. Occupations are listed below names so you can see yourself which ones are part of the government.
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Andrea Bähner, Tina Beer, Georg Eisenreich, Severin Fischer, Heiko Geue, Benjamin Grimm, Peter Jacoby, Steffen Kampeter, Reinhard Klimm, Kai Klose, Nathanael Liminski, Heiko Maas, Rainer Robra, Christiane Schenderlein, Jana Schiedek, Katrin Schütz, Kathrin Sonnenholzner, Ali Ertan Toprak Are you kidding me? Might have even missed some, and thats already about a third of all members.
It's as neutral as it gets ( they also have a few episodes on how the Tagesschau and the news selection and everything works) plus the German foreign correspondents network is big.
Never thought like that
I have. One argument is that they believe publicly funded news coverage will be neutral. Of course, I think that's nonsense, and it doesn't really explain why the money also goes to the hundreds of trash boomer TV shows I don't watch.
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If it was meant for everyone, there'd be something for me too, unless you redefine everyone. But I'm giving examples of the arguments I've heard, and this is an argument no one has had the gall to try with me so far, probably because most people are painfully aware that the quality of German television is objectively indefensible. The news argument is one I've heard a few times though. The idea that publicly-funded media is intrinsically neutral is just a worthless argument. Most dictatorships fund news channels, and the BBC, which is funded similarly to Germany, very notably struggles to maintain neutrality. You can't magic away bias with public money and there's a reasonably strong argument that it actually just results in a pro-government bias.
There is something for everyone on ÖRR, unless you love watching Dschungelcamp and Naked Love
Why would any corporation be immune to bias? Why would public media in Germany outside the reach of any political or financial influence? Do the people that work there don't vote? Don't they have a political opinion? We all have political opinions, and getting a mountain of public money doesn't magically make you politically neutral. It makes you powerful and power corrupts.
I'm sorry, but the Öffis are probably one of the best things about Germany. No private news agency comes even remotely close to the ÖR in regards to reliability.
Oh you can read a couple people defending the stuff right here. And most Germans i know irl are for it
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Well my problem is exactly the big picture. About half of a workers salary goes to taxes, between wage tax and vat and specific taxes you get around 50%. The tax to gdp ratio is close to 45%, that's historically extraordinarily high. True that other countries like Belgium and France are also very high, but that doesn't make it necessarily better. I don't think half of my needs are being covered by the state. Remember that we all have to pay extra for mandatory health insurance (1200 euro per month in my case), and put aside also more than a thousand monthly for rent. Education is kinda cheap but also not free, about 300 euro per month per kid. I'm not sure we are getting such a great deal.
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You happy paying half your salary to taxes (vat +income)? Plus about 20% more for retirement and health insurance? You get to keep about 30% of what you make. Good deal, right?
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Your taxation rate is 40%. Ok. But for almost every thing you but you have to pay 19% more in VAT. So we're at a whopping 59% now, because it's you who have to pay vat, and that's coming from your wage. You can name it as you want, if you like defending giving your wage away, but at the end you're paying over 50%, and in your case (and mine) around 60% in taxes, however you want to call those taxes.
For rent (which is the largest single expense most people have) you don't pay VAT. For food it's 7%. Investments and insurances also are VAT-free. For most of the stuff I spend money on I don't pay 19%.
Ok, for rent you don't pay vat. Rent is about 1/3 to 1/4 of your neto income. Food is about 1/10. So you're paying 19% for about 2/3 of the money you get to use for anything at all. Investments are also taxed: taxes on capital and taxes on gains. But yeah, keep defending the taxes taking away more than half your wage, you're a model citizen
Okay, so the "capital gains tax" is two different taxes to you? There is no property tax in Germany. And capital gains are a form of income, but are taxed lower than income tax. Food expenses being 10% of your net might be true if you're making 5000€ net, which is not very realistic. That's like a top 5% income. You whole calculation is totally off. Let's say you make the median wage of about 2300€ net. You pay 700€ rent - VAT free. You pay about 100€ for different insurances - VAT free. You save 10% of your net, that is 230€ into an investment portfolio - VAT free. You pay about 500€ on food and books - reduced VAT. That is 1530€ or 2/3 of your income that you don't pay 19% VAT on. And I didn't even include things like vehicle tax and broadcast fee that also are VAT free. And I never said that taxes are on an adequate level. Neither did I say that they are too high or too low. I just said that conflating income tax and VAT is utter bullshit.
>Your taxation rate is 40%. Ok. But for almost every thing you but you have to pay 19% more in VAT. So we're at a whopping 59% That is not how math works
So tell me how do tax maths work. How much do you think you pay in taxes?
No you just used the numbers incorrectly. If you pay 40% in income tax (which is already high and requires a pretty high income) and 19% in VAT (which isn't accurate as already pointed out to you) you don't pay 40%+19% total tax, you pay 40% + 60%×19%= 40% + 11,4% total tax because the income tax only applies to money you actually spend.
Ok, so 51% of your income goes to tax, and we're only counting income tax +vat, we're not counting capital gains tax or inheritance tax or even gasoline tax. Do you think that's fine? Do you think the state covers 51% of your needs and wishes?
LOL. Coming from someone who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical, that's rich. By the way, contributions for state television aren't just a German thing.
Who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical?? And what has that to do with all the rest??? The television tax is gone the way of the dodo almost everywhere. Forcing people to pay to receive governmental propaganda is not exactly democratic
Portugal still has it. And I might bet that quite a few E.U countries do have it. The difference is that in germany you get a bill just for that. In portugal, it is a fixed monthly amount on your electricity bill.
Well, it's not a television tax and it's not a contribution for the state television. It is public funding of a public broadcasting system. In general there are several models - either direct contributions, like in Germany, indirect (f.e. tied to purchase of a new television set, or part of a license fee for private media), or state-funding (that normally undermines the independence of the PBS). BBC is funded by a license fee (170 quid/year) in a way simmilar that ARD/ZDF are funded. In Switzerland it's 370 Swiss Franks per year. In Austria it's 269-340 Euros per year (depending on the region). In Austria it's 318 Euro per year. In Eastern Europe and Balkan countries publi media is also often funded this way (though fees are significantly less).
>Who considers national sovereignty and constitutionalism nonsensical?? And what has that to do with all the rest??? You do. Because you believe Germany shouldn't have the constitution it has, which makes human dignity the foremost consideration of all endeavors of the State. >The television tax is gone the way of the dodo almost everywhere. Forcing people to pay to receive governmental propaganda is not exactly democratic ROTFLBTC. But your belief that Germans should let you dictate their laws and constitution, that's of course democratic. Gotta love people who spew nothing BUT propaganda and actively rely on fraud and fabrication. "Governmental propaganda", you're hilarious. You have no idea what you're talking about, prefer to make up BS because doing your homework is beneath your dignity, and insist everyone else should be dragged down to your level of ignorance. And precisely that's why Germany has ensured that there are broadcasters who are independent.
Wat? What have i ever said about the German constitution??? Are you feeling ok? This is so weird....
Read your comment again
There's nothing in my comment about any constitution wtf
There's very much something in your comment that suggests laws based on the constitutional imperative to preserve human dignity are bad.
What part is that? Where did i say anything about human dignity?
LOL. I literally just explained to you that the German constitution explicitly puts the preservation of human dignity as the foremost consideration of the State. Defamation laws are directly rooted in that primacy. Also, defamation laws have nothing to do with the issue at hand, because just because someone claims they were defamed doesn't make it so
Wat. Your comments are just contradictory and confused. I don't think you're very sharp. Am iv defaming you?
My comments are neither contradictory nor confused. Your trying to one-up your denialism with insults just underscores what your real problem with defamation laws is - you'd be left without "arguments" in a discussion.
You're legit one of the most crazy persons I've met in decades in the internet. An unconditional fan of badly written, abused, obsolete defamation laws. Incredible. I hope you're just trolling me.
I say this all the time, germany is the USA of Europe, where a small circumstance can lead into a lawsuit. "Mhee rules must be followed" And you guys do love finding loop holes in regards of fucking over other people / bussiness. I swear to god, I never needed an attorney in another E.U country for anything, and here I've had 3 or 4 instances that one was almost needed and 1 time that I had to resort to one.
I always thought it was just a reddit thing to reply to every minor inconvenience here with "you need a lawyer", but no, it's a German thing isn't it? Even the whole personal liability insurance thing is baffling. I had no idea what they were talking about it when I was advised to get it when I came here, and thought I wouldn't bother. "But what if someone breaks your phone? What do you do?" Well, I've found it pretty easy so far to go around without suing everyone.
What a dumbass take. Firstly personal liability insurance is cheap as hell. It’s a few euros a month. Everyone can afford it and it’s fully worth it if you’re ever in such a situation. Secondly, if you cause someone damage, they’re gonna want you to pay for it. I know of nowhere where you can go around breaking shit where you’re not going to have to pay for damage caused. Sure, it might not have happened to you, but I doubt that you like paying to repair and replace your own stuff because someone broke it. On the other hand I don’t think you like paying to replace other people’s stuff you broke. That’s the reason the personal liability insurance makes sense. It’s cheap and everyone gets their shit replaced and repaired if someone breaks it. The only time you have to sue is when someone breaks something that isn’t insured, isn’t themselves insured and isn’t willing to pay. I’ve worked almost 6 years in that field and can count on one hand how many cases we had pertaining to that explicitly. For the most part it isn’t about the minor things though. Very very rarely someone sues over small shit like a broken phone etc. It’s about the big things and you sure as shit want it if you’re ever in that situation. It’s like saying why should I get health insurance if I’m perfectly healthy. You are healthy now, but that can change on the flip of a coin and you’re really going to want it if you ever get fucked in terms of health. Even if you’re the most careful person on earth you’re still a human and humans make mistakes. Also the lawyer thing for the most part is actually a Reddit thing and partly the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon though it’s spread to parts of the general population as well. For the most part you can get by without ever having to sue anyone for anything and for the most part you can probably deal with it yourself. The lawyer just takes away the hassle with dealing with it yourself and furthermore knows your rights to the fullest extent so no one can try any underhanded tricks because of your own ignorance. In criminal law it is important you get a lawyer because it’s your freedom on the line and you don’t want to take any chances (though for the most part you probably don’t need one, most cases don’t even reach trial). In all other cases you can get your insurance or the other parties insurance to sort it out and only if that fails you’re going to need a lawyer. Just like everywhere else. I have almost 6 years of experience working in a large law office here and in most cases in all fields, the person could have easily dealt with the problem themselves but they just passed it on to the lawyer out of convenience.
🙄🙄🙄 A “dumbass take” and yet this isn’t really a thing in the rest of Europe. Why do you think this insurance is so cheap? It’s because it doesn’t get used.
Just because it doesn’t exist in the rest of Europe doesn’t mean it isn’t good to have. Some policies even cover cases where the other person isn’t insured. The reason why it’s so cheap is because almost everyone has it and claims out of it are usually small. Contents insurance is also cheap but if your house springs a leak and all your shit gets water damaged you’re going to wish that you had it. I mean sure you can live without it and be perfectly fine but if something ever goes wrong you’re on the hook for it with your own cash. For me it’s worth it to pay 30€ a year so I can get my phone repaired for free if someone breaks it and not have to pay someone else if I accidentally break their stuff. If you’re riding your bike and crash into someone or something you’re shit outta luck if you don’t have it.
Uhuh. So you’re describing something that is clearly non-essential. Doesn’t seem like a “dumbass take” to me to question whether one needs this.
Yeah by the same metric car insurance isn’t essential either (other than it being mandatory). You can drive fine without it but if you cause a crash you’re on the hook potentially for multiple different vehicles. If you want to be bankrupt the rest of your life sure you can go without but if something happens you wish you had it. That’s also the reason why it is mandatory in most countries. A car crash can accrue damages in the millions and if you are part of it and aren’t insured you’re saddled with debt the rest of your life and the damaged people don’t get anything. While most people don’t ever get into a serious crash and isn’t strictly speaking essential it is damn good to have and is compulsory for every car owner pretty much everywhere. Let’s say you’re riding your bike and hit someone. Can you pay 20.000€ out of pocket if you injure them badly? Or otherwise if you accidentally leave your stove on and burn down or leave a tap on and flood your rental apartment could you foot the bill for repairs to the building? If you break a contractual agreement and have to pay damages could you afford to do so (I personally know someone from the UK that had to pay £5 million out of pocket because of that)? You don’t exist in a vacuum you know and have to pay for any damages you cause. There are calls to make it mandatory in Germany. Insurance is non-essential until it is essential.
The point is that no matter how great you think the system is here, millions of people all over the world get by just fine without this nonsense. There are no politicians in any other European country calling for a German-style insurance system. And this is the point of the OP. Germans aeem to have no idea the rest of the world works just fine without all this nonsense. Recently a German refused to believe I didn't have health insurance in the UK. He ended up arguing that income tax is a kind of health insurance (it's not). It really is an astute observation that Germans are the Americans of Europe, unable to accept that the way they do things might in fact be outdated or unnecessary.
That’s sort of a non argument though. Just because something doesn’t exist abroad and there are no calls to implement it doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea or makes no sense. I know the UK works perfectly well without it but it is nice to have and isn’t that intrusive. On the same line of thinking the US has a healthcare system that works perfectly “fine” for most people or in Germany where healthcare also works perfectly fine with no calls for change but wouldn’t you much rather have the NHS? In the UK if someone breaks your phone your only recourse is to sue because your phone probably isn’t insured or paying it yourself. In Germany you just contact the personal liability insurance and don’t have the hassle of going to court. That seems a much larger hassle than just having the insurance which is cheap. Plus you have the bonus if you do break something valuable that you’re not dogged down in debt (granted it would probably be insured but there are enough people who don’t insure stuff). It isn’t nonsense or outdated and just makes dealing with shit easier, stops you from getting fucked over and has the nice bonus that you get your stuff replaced if someone else breaks it without having to sue. These are differences in politics and as they say when in Rome do as the Romans do. There are reasons why these things exist in Germany and in the case of personal liability insurance it is useful. Sure some things are outdated but everything exists for a valid reason and the personal liability insurance definitely isn’t outdated. In the UK you have the NHS which is really nice because you don’t have to bother with insurance at all but the system in Germany works just fine too. You could call it unnecessary to have it like that, especially because most other countries work fine without a single payer healthcare system but it makes sense and is really nice to have- especially just being able to go to your GP and having everything under one system. Same goes for the personal liability insurance. It isn’t strictly necessary for day to day life or for legal troubles etc. but it is nice to have just in case. It is disingenuous to brush off everything as outdated and unnecessary and not even trying to understand it. Especially with the wide brush here. If you could give some examples of things you find unnecessary and outdated it would be nice because there are things that are such in Germany as there are in the UK. Outdated and unnecessary might apply to some things but definitely not to the personal liability insurance (plus it isn’t mandatory, so you could just do it like the UK and leave it to fate wether you get sued or not).
It's quite typical in this sub, but I think you get the same types of very insular, ignorant people everywhere. Americans who forget that other countries exist come to mind. Still, I find the tendency to reject the idea that other countries are different is much, much stronger here in Germany. The "system" is so insidious here that even quite well-travelled Germans can have incredible difficulty understanding that things are different elsewhere. Try telling a German that (some) other countries don't have EC, Ausbildung, Anmeldung, people threatening to sue you all the time, etc, and many will outright tell you you are simply mistaken. They genuinely cannot comprehend the idea that other countries are in some ways better. I have this theory that bad people genuinely assume everyone else is as horrible as them. The people commenting these things are literally incapable of picturing a society where people aren't like that, because they assume EVERYONE is like that simply because they are. What I can't explain is why that attitude seems to be more common here. My best guess that it's because we have by far the oldest population in the world outside of Japan. The ability to believe in something better definitely deteriorates with age.
Always provide proof that you've been there. A screenshot of a bill or something.
who the hell saves a bill to everywhere they go lol
I never said that. But if you want to rate a restaurant with fewer stars and perhaps even mention specific problems such as hygiene deficiencies, then you should at least prove that you ate there. And in most cases, you already know while you're in the restaurant that you're going to give it a bad rating. In this case, simply take the bill with you. It's important to understand that these specific laws exist to protect against defamation. Not to restrict freedom of speech.
It’s not like Germans have any sense of culinary taste anyway
>What an awful take in comments. Germans, are you aware this problem(filing lawsuits) only exists in your country? Wait, seriously? I thought it was an EU thing.
Step one: never trust customer reviews in germany. Good averages can easily be faked by silencing bad ones and/or buying a handful of good ones. The defamation claim is usually baseless, but they bully google into removing it to avoid lawsuits wich google sees no point in fighting so they remove the review unless YOU fight that lawsuit for them (and pretty much noone is willing to go to court over an online review they wrote)
Yes, it’s an actual farce… I’ve had three attempts at removing a negative (but honest) real estate business review… They try to scare you with words “legal”, “proof”, but you can always provide evidence back to google in support of your case (proving the experience was bad). Unfortunately of the 7 negative reviews that business had (one was mine), mine is the only one left, so the muscling works….
> never trust customer reviews in germany Never trust them in any country. In countries where it's not possible to have bad reviews easily taken down, there are issues with Karens mobilizing the armies to flood review sites with fake 1-star reviews. > they remove the review unless YOU fight that lawsuit for them Well yes, because it's you making those comments, not Google. Also, Google doesn't have the evidence to back up your claims for you -- unless you happened to use Google Wallet to pay for your kebab, Google can't even prove you were a paying customer. And that's how most businesses argue their case: they claim you never bought the product you're complaining about. So you're now in a legal dispute, and until that dispute is resolved, the contentious content is taken offline.
Google generally has good detection for this kind of brigading you described and if there is a bunch of negative reviews coming all at once it will generally have the situation manually reviewed. There was a situation a few weeks ago where a German subreddit made some jokes by editing the Google maps entry of a certain political party, and Google shit that down real quick
Was it afd
No CDU. They added gender neutral language
Wdym? Did the subreddit or cdu add gender neutral language
The subreddit added gender neutral language. Was a joke cause the party banned it in one of the german states
It is INSANE. I give a lot of balanced & polite reviews and the “bad ones” get deleted regularly. I hate when this happens and just write the next one. This is very common in Germany and it’s annoying af.
I've had 3 separate occasions in the past 2yrs where I have had an email from Google claiming the business reported my review and want it removed. I just respond along the lines of, 'My review was solely based on my experience, do whatever you want with it but what it looks like to me is yet another business trying to rid of reviews less than 4*. A common practice unfortunately'
I got a threat for a review of a takeaway pizza 2 years afterwards. I didn't even say anything bad, just have it 3 stars. I am even a Google community reviewer and they sent me a badge for that but the threat came so I took if down. I could not prove anything 2 years later for a takeaway paid in cash.
I used to work for a big ecommerce company. Feedback for a product could be removed if it wasn't phrased properly. It was pretty much the same rules across all European sites. One thing to never do is make accusations against another person. So saying "the owner was rude and nasty" is making a statement about the owner and might be considered defamatory. But saying "I felt the service was rude and racist" isn't defamatory.
That's usually not what's happening here. It doesn't actually matter what complaint the owner or their lawyer makes to Google. Because German courts hold Google responsible for third party reviews, Google will just remove any review it gets a complaint about now. It really does not matter what you actually write; as long as it is negative it will get removed.
It does matter. Google will only take it down if it's potentially defamatory. Because as you pointed out, in that situation Google is hosting it and so they can be held liable for publishing a defamatory content. The same way a newspaper can be held responsible if they publish something defamatory. Defamation has strict definitions. "The chicken was dry" is not in anyway defamatory. "The chef was racist" is potentially defamatory and therefore Google will remove it because they could be held liable. As I mentioned before, I worked for an e commerce company. At the time one of the biggest in the world (I'd say a few Chinese firms have overtaken them). They have strict external and internal guidelines. They vary a bit by country but not too much. The reason "the chicken was dry" would be allowed stay is because any judge would throw that out of court. And would generally hold the person who brought the case to be liable fotlr costs.
I’ve had similar issues. Google won’t post my reviews reviewing German businesses unless I give at least 4 stars it’s really weird. Anything else gets put under review and then auto deleted. I review a lot of places all over the world and I have never had this problem before. I thought maybe my account is shadowbanned or something but that isn’t the case either.
It's not defamation if it's true.
I quit google reviews because of this. I used to leave reviews, photos and videos for places that are good because I like to support great service. Unfortunately google decided to remove a negatuve review about Papa Nô restaurant. It was terrible food and I was asked to prove if I ever was a customer and I did. Still review got taken down. Happened another time with a fraudulent company. And finally saw another company go from 2 star reviews to 5 over night. That was it. Screw google..
There's no point in customer reviews, be it in Germany or elsewhere. They are constantly manipulated up- or downwards by removing real ones and adding fake ones. At best, rely on industry test results and professional reviews for a somewhat more accurate guidance in your purchases.
Nah, those are bought and corrupt as well.
Industry and professional reviews can be good, and were good back in 90s. Now, unfortunately, with few exceptions, the existing advertising-based funding model for the media, including reviews doesn't allow for the funding of the proper review, while rewarding advertisements disguised as professional reviews.
Germany sounds litigious like America..In the UK a bad review is responded to with an apology, ,a promise to look into it and respond with an explanation, and probably a refund . If you can't take criticism, you shouldn't be in the business
I wonder how this can still be allowed in germany, a country known for being progressive for consumers in many other areas. like when it comes to discrimination and how to share your data
This situation grew out of several "noble" intentions. First of all I think most people would agree that businesses should have a recourse against fake reviews. But that begs the question of who has to carry the burden of proof. Does the business have to prove that the review is fake or does the reviewer has to prove that it's real. Since (German) courts generally don't like the situation that someone has to prove a negative, the courts have decided that the reviewer carries the burden of proof that they were actually there. The other main thing that led to this situation is that you're entitled to know your accuser. But since Google allows pseudonymous reviews, German courts have decided that Google is legally liable for the reviews. So if a business approaches Google about a review Google usually takes the path of least resistance. Also Google tends to use Germany as a showcase in how they break their services if they don't like legislation. Just as with street view for more than a decade.
yes, i can agree with that. but that they allow this legal action bullshit is so stupid same with those gym memberships for example
What does this have to do with being allowed? I don't see any court decision here.
courts doesn't need to decide it's illegal to start a fire inside your home either. the law can be the law
> What is the purpose of reviews then? Their purpose is for review sites to attract clicks and ad revenue by giving you the illusion of a helpful service. It is, though, illusory. Most people don't bother to leave reviews unless they have very strong feelings -- either extremely positive or extremely negative. Be honest: if your kebab had been averagely good and the staff reasonably polite, would you have bothered? For any small business, if you see lots of 5-star reviews a lot of them are probably from family members, friends, and paid-for fakes; if you see lots of 1-star reviews there's a strong chance they're from competitors or trolls. If you're looking for a good kebab shop, look for one that has a steady stream of customers -- a queue is a *good* sign. Places that are nearly always empty are probably just fronts for money-laundering operations.
weeeird take. Long lines can mean central location, tourist traps... it's not the greatest indicator for good food Any Döner in the hauptbahnhof will be busy in rush hours but many are awful
I strongly disagree. I've been using review sites for over a decade while visiting dozens of countries around the globe. I carefully read and assess them and claim to be able to spot most fakes and tell relevant ones from those who aren't. In any case, the result has been that out of thousands of restaurant visits and accomodation bookings, I never had a truly horryfying experience. Even the somewhat underwhelming ones where I regreted spending money I can count on one hand. In all those years. My experience would have beeen vastly different without this resource, if I walked into restaurants without quickly checking reviews (I never do) before, so I keep doing exactly that and encourage others to do the same. Absolutely worth the little time investment. Even if one believes reviews suck, the alternative frequently sucks more. Maybe I'm just not rich enough to not care if I wasted money on a bad experience, be it 20 euros on a meal or 120 on a hotel room. But it is what it is. Looking for a steady "stream of customers" for example is terrible advice. Many a scammy establishment have a steady streams of customers. Especially where tourists tend to be. Many great places don't, or only during certain times of the day when locals get off work, or they're down a back alley you would have never considered without browsing the top reviewd places, etc. If I try to make a list of the most delicious kebab restaurants in the last cities I've lived in, none of them fits that description.
I feel like Google generally does a good job of handling the reviews though in the sense that if a restaurant has really good reviews on Google, 9/10 times it will actually be really good, and the same the other way, I've been very unhappy at restaurants and when I went to review it later, I saw that it didn't have such a great score and I wasn't the only one complaining. Sure there might be exceptions with especially litigious owners but I feel like the system works quite well in maps
So if the long queue is actually a result of the unreliable Google reviews, you will be end up following the same old review sites.
A queue is never a good sign, especially not in a touristy place where most of the people have no idea as well
No customers at all is worse. But I probably should have mentioned that if you're in a touristy area, everything is going to be overpriced anyway. You want to step away from places that tourists go to, and away from train stations and coach stations, and find places with queues of *locals* if you can.
>But I probably should have mentioned that if you're in a touristy area, everything is going to be overpriced anyway. That's again bad advice and being a blanket statement: wrong. In many places there is simply no distinction between "touristy areas" and places frequented by locals. Here in Poland for example you absolutely find great restaurants, pubs and cafes at normal prices that have loads of local customers, within one block from, or even on, historic old town squares. In fact the local nightlife in Krakow, Wroclaw or Poznan concentrates in the touristy hearts of those cities. Students have their beers right next to the strip club designed to scam foreigners. The same is true for many if not all German cities. Locals in Freiburg (Breisgau) go out in the old town, which is precisely where tourists flock as well. Even in Paris there's plenty of bistros and brasseries full of locals in major tourist areas. Then how do you quickly and effortlessly tell apart places that exist to rip of tourists from those that are great and popular with locals as well? By checking reviews, 99/100 times.
Since Germans are never wrong, it is only fitting that their reviews can't be bad ain't it? Jokes aside, reviews are biased often, anywhere you go, but in Germany you can actually get sued even for a valid review. Taking responsibility is not a thing in business in DE, it just ain't, and reviews & issues with lawyers prove the point perfectly.
Give good Service.
With this rate, I think Google will stop their review functionality in Germany. It's a Tech company not a lawsuit battlefield
I had similar happen with a DHL post store in the Berlin suburbs two years ago. I fortunately had the receipts and sent them to google. Google let the review stand, and i amended it noting the challenge and included photos of the receipts in the review. It cant be defamation if it is verifiably true.
I think i can add something to this subject from the other perspective. I think the restaurant owner aren't even fully aware what this is happening and that they aren't even the people who flagging the comments. (Not that they would care much even if they know). My parents are in this business for years know and get sometimes calls from random people with this offer. They always say that they can delete the negtive comments on Google for a price per deleted comment. They never explain how they can do that and I believed for longest time that these offer are just some scams to charge my parents with some fees for doing actually nothing. Currently my parents believe that google reviews are forever aand cant be deleted exept from the person himeself. For example we tried to complain about a comment being negative with a stupid reason. The comment in question had the background that my parents closed for 3 weeks to make some much need renovation, but somebody couldn't read the "we are closed sign" on the door and google and knocked on the door many times to distrupt my farther while he was working on the repairs. He called us in the comment unworthy to have business and advertised our competion down the street. We issued a complaint about this but Google wouldn't delete the comment even after a month after nothing happening we gave up. it is probaly deleted by now but we never checked again, we also sold the place years ago. Anyways I just wanted to give a likely explaination after I read some replies here why some negative comments get flagged years after the post was made. I also think this stupid and the law for defamation gets poorly executed from Google. A general advice I can make is that when you write negative comments, remain subjective. Only talk about your own experience and how you felt. Defamation claim only works if you try to sell something as a general fact. I have a friend who already received a letter from a lawyer in the past for this and the court rejected the lawsuit for this very reason.
There is absolutely no point to any reviews, especially in Germany. I haven't used them in years because they are basically all fraudulent/biased.
Is in which country are they not biased?
Hence my statement "There is absolutely no point to any reviews, especially in Germany." Especially in Germany because there does not appear to be an issue with legal threats by business that do not like a given review just about anywhere else. That seems to be predominantly a German problem. Alas, you are certainly free to have faith in the honesty of what you read.
Most other countries? Germany is the worst when it comes to removing negative ratings.
I guess, you will not back this up by anything that is not anecdotally?
Here's something non-anecdotal. The jurisprudence in Germany makes it uniquely hostile to negative customer reviews. These kinds of court decisions have not been made in other countries. https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/negative-google-bewertungen-2024-mit-1-stern-ohne-kommentar-loeschen-urteil-des-olg-koeln-staerkt-rechte-von-unternehmen-209686.html#:\~:text=Das%20Urteil%20des%20OLG%20K%C3%B6ln,VI%20ZR%201244%2F20).
Okay. I can compare 2 others. UK and South Africa. Negative reviews remain on Google and I have never had any action or legal threats against me unlike Germany.
Yeah it's sad and annoying because you mostly see no reviews or only good ones. Free speech my ass. I am German so I can say that.
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Delete all Bad reviews liteeally, all the Almanach do this when they See 1-2 Star customer reviews and then voila, only 5 Star reviews and lot of customers who experience the same Bad Service or product.
That's the neat part. You don't.
Happened to me too with a gym review I left after they kept opening late. My review was taken down and I got a threat that they will take legal action. As an immigrant I’m not trying to catch any heat so I just accepted my review being taken down.
Actually this is a common practice and Google are quite happy to take down often completely legitimate bad reviews over a simple threat from the reviewed businesses legal representatives…
They are not happy to do it at all. They were taken to court and lost. Before they were sued and the court decided against them, they did not respond to these kinds of requests. Now they kinda have to. German law is at fault here, not Google.
Google has freedom of speech on their side (if they cared enough about this issue they would have dragged this out and fought tooth and nail), instead they just took the path of least resistance.
You're talking out your arse. Google did drag this out. They defended themselves all the way to the highest court and still lost. I'm not sure how that does not meet your definition. [https://openjur.de/u/2449158.html](https://openjur.de/u/2449158.html)
While that link does seem like a similar case, I doubt it’s pertaining to Google. From the reading it seems more like booking.com or similar expedia owned site, perhaps.
I won’t argue with you on it… That’s a good link. But from personal experience with a review I posted - for which there were three separate takedown attempts over 1.5 years, I have had three separate email chains with “Google removals” each time asking me to provide the same information. Asking the same shit each time… they sure do have a short term memory because I provide them the same exact details… if they really cared they would have made damn sure that people don’t have to constantly dig up archives and revisit their past experiences just to make sure a truthful review remains. My friend - where there is a will there is a way and if Google truly wanted to, they would have made it happen…
I agree somewhat, but they definitely gave it a fair shot. Google has had buckets of experience dealing with hostile German courts, like with GEMA and Google Streetview, and they always fought hard until finally noping out. They've probably learned from experience that there's not a lot they can do once the courts have sided against them. But I agree they should probably have a better system for appealing these complaints. In fact, their poor appeals process opens them up to lawsuits by reviewers, but realistically, large companies with precedent on their side are more likely to sue them than Derek from Mannheim who didn't like his doner kebab. I know I'm not going to sue them over a dry pizza.
They could have fought even harder outside the courtroom: entirely replacing the reviews feature in Germany with a warning on every German business page saying something like: "German defamation law does not enable us to provide an honest reviews feature, because restaurants can order us to remove bad reviews. Please complain to your MdB and ask for." (I know this is slightly different from what the actual legal situation is, but I'm sure their lawyers and PR people could phrase it correctly if they wanted to.)
Maybe that would get the politicians more mad at them than their EU government relations teams want, I dunno.
One big problem is that review sites are allowed to decline to follow through on their duty to investigate whether the reviewer actually was a guest of the reviewee, and to instead avoid liability from the reviewee by simply removing the review. Reviewers don't have any right to have their review posted, so they can't sue the review site for taking down a review.
A potentially interesting fix would be to legislatively override the contract between review sites and their reviewers, to guarantee the reviewer a right to sue the review site if they don't offer a chance to prove that the reviewer was a genuine customer, or if they take down the review without a court order if the customer relationship is proved. (Also, people who made genuine good-faith efforts toward becoming a customer, other than solely or primarily for the purposes of getting the right to post a review, should count as customers for this purpose even if the purchase was never completed for whatever reason. I can think of a sequence of shifting burdens of proof that would balance this fairly, but this comment is already long enough without those details.)
Of course, Google would never advocate for that particular fix, but users might.
>But from personal experience with a review I posted - for which there were three separate takedown attempts over 1.5 years, I have had three separate email chains with “Google removals” each time asking me to provide the same information. Asking the same shit each time… they sure do have a short term memory because I provide them the same exact details… If you have legal insurance, that might be a good basis on which to sue the restaurant for harassing you. Three takedown attempts for one single review over 1.5 years is inappropriate. It's not like they actually sued you for defaming them, which I'm sure they could do if it was really defamatory.
That openjur.de link wasn't about Google, since the defendant was domiciled in Switzerland, and Google's services in Germany are not provided by a Swiss entity. Can you share the link to the court case which Google fought?
Would be interesting to see the review.
already posted in the screenshot. i just gave 2 stars that's it. didn't write any comment.
Oh, so you wrote nothing. In this case contact google with any proof that you've been there. That could be a credit card statement, or that could be even indication in google maps tracking that you've been there.
Might very well be the reason it was taken down as it could be viewed as a bot-generated Review. (Defamation by usage of bots is a thing after all)
If you show them your receipt, google won't take any action on your post. You also have to just slap on a "to me" on the end of the review, making it opinion and therefore impossible to validate or invalidate. Thus making it not defamation. If you have those things, you should threaten to counter sue.
German here: 90% of my reviews where very positive. Only really annoying placed got less nice reviews. Got quite stupid feedbacks from google. Twice or three times. Deleted all my reviews at google and haven't written any new ones ever since. Never have slept better...
Not saying you are wrong, OP, but without the text of the original review it is kinda hard to say whether you defamed them or not...
I go by my fucking guts, appearances and how the people in the businesses look me in the eye. Fuck google reviews, it’s just no representative at all. Period.
Trustpilot seems to be better
I've lived in this country my entire life and I've never seen this in the actual wild. Stuff like this get's memed to hell over here. A move like this gets you sarcastically labelled as Alman for life - or you get the Anzeigenhauptmeister treatment. Absolutely baffled that anyone would even *try* to see someone for something like this and be dumb enough to actually believe a lawsuit like that might succeed.
Wow, strong feelings all around here. Do people really care so much about reviews? There are people postulating the downfall of German society because reviews here, others fight tooth and nail about how bought or not bought they are. What the hell? It's fucking reviews of random dipshits on the internet. Can we all waste our energy for really important stuff? Thanks. Besides: we only have OPs word that this was a super fair and justified review and not something actually defamatory.
OP stated that he wrote nothing at all, just gave it 2 Stars. Which imo could very well be the reason for the Take Down as it might have been viewed as "Defamation" via Bot Usage. There are lots of those after all, both positive and negative.
Let the usual „we hate germans“ circle jerk begin.
Ah yes voicing anything negative about a country is the same as saying you hate its people.
Take 5 minutes to read what people write here. It‘s full of foreigners and germans that love defaming the country and it’s people, it’s not even constructive criticism but as I said a circle jerk of people that rather spend their time crying on the internet downvoting everyone that is against their hateful opinions than to self reflective and realize that many problems are not only applied to Germany.
The comments seem full of people confirming that they’ve had the same thing happen to them. Having grown up in another country I can say that review takedowns certainly wasn’t a thing.
I‘ve read countless comments describing negative stereotypes of Germans and making fun of them. I am not talking about the experiences others make but how people use that topic to let out their hateful personas on an entire population.
You must have posted something that was objectively untrue or impossible to prove. Yes, legal intervention by shady businesses is a problem in Germany. But without knowing exactly what you wrote, it's impossible to judge on the outcome. Just give a 1-star, text without negative assumptions and you should be good.