Asking for reviews is legal, encouraged, and expected. The trouble starts with HOW some businesses ask. The rules below are the ones with actual enforcement behind them.
The FTC line: nothing of value
No payment, discounts, freebies, or contest entries in exchange for reviews — and that’s regardless of whether you ask for a POSITIVE review; compensating any review without disclosure is the violation. The FTC’s 2024 rule on fake reviews made penalties concrete (civil penalties per violation), and it covers buying reviews, review-generating bots, and undisclosed insider reviews (employees, family) too.
The Google line: no gating, no filtering
“Review gating” — pre-screening customers by sentiment and only inviting the happy ones to Google — violates Google’s review policies and platforms actively look for its signature (suspiciously uniform five-star inflow). The fix is philosophical, not technical: ask every customer through the same flow. A feedback question is fine — as long as everyone still gets the review link afterward regardless of their answer.
Platform quirks worth knowing
- Yelp is stricter than everyone: Yelp discourages ASKING at all, and its filter suppresses reviews it associates with solicitation. Don’t send Yelp links in bulk asks; let Yelp accumulate organically.
- Never review your own business, from any account, ever — and don’t have staff do it. This is the fastest way to lose the whole profile.
- Don’t threaten reviewers. Suing or intimidating over negative reviews triggers the Consumer Review Fairness Act (gag clauses in contracts are void) and the publicity is always worse than the review.
What good looks like
A text at job completion: “Thanks for choosing [business]! If we did right by you, a Google review helps us more than you know: [direct link]”. Every customer, same message, no screening, nothing offered. Boring, compliant, and it compounds forever.