If you've researched review management software, you've likely encountered tools that ask customers how satisfied they are before deciding whether to show them your Google review link. This practice — called review gating or star gating — is illegal under federal law. Here's everything local business owners need to know.
What Is Review Gating?
Review gating (also called star gating) is the practice of pre-screening customers based on inferred satisfaction before presenting them with a review link. The typical flow looks like this: (1) Send a customer a satisfaction survey or star rating prompt, (2) If they indicate high satisfaction (4-5 stars), show them a link to Google or Yelp, (3) If they indicate low satisfaction (1-3 stars), redirect them to a private feedback form or show them nothing.
The result is that only happy customers end up on Google, while unhappy ones are filtered out. On the surface this seems like good business strategy. In practice, it violates federal law and Google's terms of service.
The FTC Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA)
The FTC Consumer Review Fairness Act was signed into law on December 14, 2016. It explicitly prohibits businesses from using contract provisions or platform mechanisms that: suppress or prevent negative reviews, penalize customers for leaving negative reviews, or require customers to submit reviews through a pre-screening process that filters based on expected content.
Penalties for Review Gating
Violations of the FTC Consumer Review Fairness Act can result in civil penalties up to $50,120 per violation. In cases where review gating is systematic — built into a platform used for thousands of review requests — each individual filtered transaction could be considered a separate violation, resulting in total liability that can reach millions of dollars.
Beyond FTC enforcement, Google can suspend your Business Profile for review manipulation, resulting in the loss of all your existing reviews and removal from local search results.
Which Review Platforms Use Star Gating?
Many of the most widely-used review management platforms use some form of star gating. These include Podium, Birdeye, NiceJob, Grade.us, Broadly, Swell, Signpost, Thryv, Vendasta, ReviewTrackers, and others. Their workflows typically include a satisfaction survey step before any review link is shown — which is the definition of review gating under the CRFA.
What Google's Policies Say
Google's review policies independently prohibit review gating. Their guidelines state that businesses may not "discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." Google actively monitors for signals of review gating and can remove reviews, suppress listings, or suspend Google Business Profiles.
How to Collect Reviews Legally
Legal review collection is simple: ask every customer for a review, and show every customer the same experience. You can still offer a private feedback path alongside the Google review option — this is legal because both options are presented equally. What you cannot do is hide the Google review link based on how a customer responds to a pre-screening question.
- •Always show every customer the same review request — do not filter by satisfaction
- •You may include a private feedback option alongside the Google link, but both must always be shown
- •Do not use satisfaction surveys or star rating prompts before presenting the review link
- •Do not use any platform that conditionally routes customers based on inferred sentiment
- •Document your review collection process so you can demonstrate FTC compliance
The Legal Alternative
ReviewShielder's dual-path QR code shows every customer two equal options: leave a Google review publicly, or send private feedback to management. There is no pre-screening, no sentiment analysis, and no conditional routing. This design was specifically built to be compliant with the FTC Consumer Review Fairness Act and Google's review policies.