Review Gating Is Illegal in the US: The FTC Rule Explained
Updated on 17 September 2026
Since October 21, 2024, the FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule gives the agency explicit authority to seek civil penalties — currently $51,744 per violation, with each fake or suppressed review potentially counting as a separate violation — against businesses that manipulate reviews, including through review gating.
What review gating actually is
Review gating means selectively asking for reviews only from customers predicted to leave positive feedback — typically by sending a satisfaction survey first, then routing happy customers toward a public review platform while routing unhappy ones toward a private complaint form that never becomes public. The practice looks like customer service on the surface, but its actual function is to suppress negative feedback from ever reaching a public review site.
What the FTC rule prohibits
The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, finalized in August 2024 and effective October 21, 2024, prohibits several practices at once: selling or buying fake reviews, buying positive or negative reviews, insiders posting reviews without disclosing their relationship to the business, operating a company-controlled site that falsely presents itself as independent, certain review suppression practices, and buying or selling fake indicators of social media influence. Review gating falls under the review suppression category the rule targets.
A real precedent: the $4.2 million case
Before this rule existed, the FTC had already pursued and settled a case against a company for routing dissatisfied customers to a private complaint form while pushing satisfied customers to post publicly — resulting in a $4.2 million settlement in 2022. That case shows the FTC was already treating this kind of manipulation as an enforcement priority before the 2024 rule gave it a more direct statutory path.
Why the 2024 rule changes the calculus
Before October 2024, the FTC generally had to build a case under its broader unfair-or-deceptive-practices authority, case by case. The new rule gives it a direct, specific violation to cite, with a defined penalty structure — $51,744 per violation as of the rule's issuance, adjusted periodically for inflation — and the critical detail that each individual fake or suppressed review can count as a separate violation, which is what turns this into a potentially large financial exposure rather than a one-time fine.
What to do instead
Ask every customer for a review, not just the ones you expect to be positive. Route negative feedback into a private, internal channel only if it's offered as an additional option alongside a genuine path to a public review — never as the sole outlet for dissatisfied customers. Respond publicly to negative reviews rather than trying to prevent them from existing — see respond to a negative review: a 5-step method.
The compliant alternative for structured feedback
A satisfaction check that routes feedback based on sentiment, without preventing any customer from reaching the public review platform if they choose to, avoids the legal risk while still giving you an internal channel for service recovery — the distinction is whether the customer retains a genuine, unobstructed path to a public review, not whether you offer an internal feedback option at all.
For the full picture on getting more reviews without breaking the rules, see how to get more Google reviews without breaking the rules.
SEOresto's automated response workflow is built around FTC-compliant review collection. From €39/month. See pricing.
Sources: FTC, "Federal Trade Commission Announces Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials," August 2024; Federal Register, Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials.
Author: Dmitrii Portnov, founder of SEOresto.
