If there's only one suppression mechanism, then I would assume both manually and algorithmically removed reviews are returning!

TL;DR: I'm not sure.

4/4

If the reviews can return, they obviously aren't deleted, merely suppressed.

I'm not sure if the suppression mechanism is the same for reviews removed manually, by merchant request, and those removed by an algo.

3/4

There's an important difference to consider. The "bad" reviews are removed by a manual process. Those positive reviews that merchants are not happy to see disappear are removed automatically by an algorithm.

2/4

[email protected] - The cases I've seen have all been complaints: merchants who removed a "bad" review and were unhappy to see it returning. I haven't seen anyone complaining about positive reviews returning!

1/4

Schools with a poor rating were stuck with no way to improve.

Now reviews are gone.

Good for schools stuck with a poor rating for the last several years.

Bad for private/for-profit schools that could use reviews to help support their businesses. (h/t @bubblesup.bsky.social )

3/3

Roughly 6 years ago, Google disabled the option for some types of schools to get new reviews. This restriction was imposed in several countries.

Old reviews remained visible.

This was Google's response to a wave of nonsense reviews on school profiles.

2/3

In my experience, the OLD process never worked as described.

The "owner conflict" dialogue never appeared.

To complete the process, I used this "unofficial" solution: Contact Google support.

The official NEW process:
Contact Google support.

Reference: support.google.com/business/ans...

2/2

This applies to the grey market cannabis delivery services that are all over the map in Ontario.

Any other examples?

Google actually uses the phrase "Businesses associated with..." not the specific term "selling", so this new requirement can be applied broadly/loosely.

2/3