A Fake Google Review Is Damaging My Business

A fake Google review is damaging my business: it is one of the most common reasons a business owner contacts a defamation solicitor, and it has a specific legal shape. The review sits on the listing every prospective customer reads, it describes a transaction that never happened, and the reviewer is a competitor, a former employee, a relative of someone you fell out with, or a name you have never seen. The Defamation Act 2009, as amended on 1 March 2026, gives the business a route, but the route depends on three questions answered in order: is the review a statement of fact or an opinion, can you prove there was no transaction, and if the business is a company, can it show serious harm. This guide takes them in that order.

1. Fact or Opinion: Section 20

Honest opinion under section 20 protects a statement that is recognisable as opinion, honestly held, based on facts that were true or indicated, on a matter of public interest or a matter the reasonable person would consider opinion. A real customer who writes that the meal was disappointing or the plumber was expensive is expressing an opinion based on a transaction that happened, and a claim against that review will fail. A review that asserts a fact is different: “they took the deposit and never came back”, “the electrician is not registered”, “they charged my card twice and refused to refund”. Those are statements of fact that have to be true under section 16 to be defended. The fake review is nearly always a statement of fact, because its purpose is to describe an experience the reviewer did not have, and an opinion with no underlying facts at all has nothing for section 20 to protect.

2. Proving a Fake Google Review: The Records That Show No Transaction

The evidence that a review is fake is the business’s own paperwork. Pull the booking system, the appointment diary, the invoice ledger, the till reports, the CRM and the email and phone logs for the period the review describes, and show that no customer of that name, no job of that kind and no transaction on that date exists. Screenshot the review with the reviewer’s name, the date and the star rating visible, and note the account’s other reviews if they can be seen, because a pattern of one-star reviews of businesses in the same trade tells its own story. Where the reviewer is a competitor or a former employee, keep whatever links the account to them. These records do double duty: they prove the review is false, and they are the baseline against which any fall in bookings or enquiries after the review is measured.

3. Serious Harm If the Business Is a Company: Section 12

Since 1 March 2026 section 12 provides that a statement about a body corporate is not defamatory unless it has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to its reputation, and for a body trading for profit that means serious financial loss. There is no serious harm test for individuals. A sole trader, a partner or a company director named in the review sues as an individual and does not have to show loss at all. A limited company must show the loss: cancelled bookings, lost contracts, a decline in enquiries measured against the months before, a customer who says in writing that the review was the reason they went elsewhere. The test is explained in full in the serious harm test for companies. For many small businesses the practical answer is that the owner, who is identified by the review as plainly as the company is, has the more straightforward claim.

4. Report It to Google and the Digital Services Act Notice

With the evidence saved, report the review through the listing. Cite the platform’s own policy on fake engagement and reviews that describe no genuine experience, say why the review is defamatory, and keep the reference number and the date. The Digital Services Act, in force since 17 February 2024, requires platforms to run notice-and-action systems, so a notice that identifies the review and explains why it is unlawful must be processed and answered. Coimisiún na Meán is Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator. Google runs its European operations from Dublin, so the notice is addressed to a Dublin-registered company. Two limits. A platform report does not pause the limitation clock under section 38, and a removal is a platform decision under platform rules, not a finding that the review was false. The report runs alongside the legal route, not instead of it.

5. Stillorgan Gas Heating and Plumbing Ltd v Manning

Among the reported decisions, Stillorgan Gas Heating and Plumbing Ltd v Manning [2025] IEHC 90 is the High Court decision on online reviews, in which €40,000 was awarded. It is cited here as information on the law and nothing more: a reported judgment between other parties, decided on its own facts, which does not predict the outcome of any other claim. We do not generalise from it. Damages in any claim are assessed under section 31, which directs the court to the nature and gravity of the allegation, the means and extent of publication, any apology or offer of amends, and the plaintiff’s own evidence. The practice page on Google reviews and business defamation sets out the claim from first screenshot to final order.

6. The Letter

Where the reviewer can be identified, a solicitor’s letter is the next step and often the last one. It quotes the review, states the meaning it carries, sets out the records that show no transaction took place, and seeks removal, an undertaking not to repeat the allegation, and an apology. The letter is quoted as a fixed sum after the consultation. It should leave the Act’s exits open to the reviewer: an apology under section 24 is not an admission of liability, and an offer of amends under sections 22 and 23, made before the defence is delivered, is the formal way of closing a weak position. A letter that sets out the evidence and a date is harder to ignore than one that only threatens, and a threat without evidence tends to end up posted beside the review.

7. The Anonymous Reviewer: Section 45

Where the account is a first name and an initial, or nothing at all, section 45 applies. Since 1 March 2026 the Circuit Court may order an intermediary — a platform, host or provider — to disclose information identifying an anonymous author where the interests of justice require it, and may order the applicant to pay the intermediary’s costs. Before March 2026 this needed a High Court Norwich Pharmacal application, which put most fake-review claims beyond the reach of a small business. The application is made on affidavit with the captured review, the account name, the records showing no transaction, the harm, and the steps taken through the platform. The full mechanics are in how to identify an anonymous troll. The one-year clock keeps running while the application is pending.

8. The Section 28 Declaratory Order

For many businesses the remedy that matters is not money but a finding. Section 28 lets the Circuit Court grant a declaratory order that the statement was false and defamatory, on a summary application and without damages. It is faster and cheaper than a full action, and it produces a court order that can be put to the platform, to the search engine and to customers who ask. A correction order under section 30 and a prohibition order under section 33 against further publication are available alongside it, and the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction in defamation is €75,000 where damages are sought. Court proceedings carry a risk of being ordered to pay the other side’s costs if the claim fails, and most Circuit Court defamation claims settle before hearing. Before issuing, your solicitor must inform you of the Press Council and right of reply options and file a statutory declaration under section 34K.

9. The Clock, and the Other Side

Section 38 gives one year from the date of first publication, extendable by the court to a maximum of two years only where the interests of justice require it, which the courts apply strictly, and under section 11 the review staying on the listing does not restart time. The Defamation Claim Checker tests the elements, the serious harm question, the forum and the time limit from your answers. If you wrote a review and a letter has arrived, the same analysis applies from your side: whether the review states fact or opinion, whether you can prove the transaction, and whether a section 24 apology or removal without admission ends it. We act for businesses that have been defamed and for people accused of defaming them, never for both sides of the same dispute.