Asking for Reviews Without Breaking the Law: The FTC Consumer Reviews Rule, Google's Policy and Yelp's, for Contractors

Quick answer: Since October 21, 2024, the FTC's Consumer Reviews Rule (16 CFR Part 465) makes six things unlawful with civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation: fake reviews, paying or rewarding for reviews that express a particular sentiment, undisclosed reviews by owners, employees or their relatives, company-run sites posing as independent, suppressing reviews with groundless legal threats or intimidation, and buying fake followers. Asking every customer for a review is legal under the rule. Offering an incentive is legal under the rule only if it is not conditioned on the review being positive, and the Endorsement Guides still require the reviewer to disclose it. Asking only your happy customers is not a Part 465 violation, but the FTC says it 'could violate the FTC Act,' and Google's policy bans it outright. Yelp bans asking at all. A non-disparagement clause in your contract has been void since the 2017 Consumer Review Fairness Act. The FTC sent its first warning letters under the rule in December 2025 to property managers, law firms and an accounting firm, for exactly the practices small service businesses use: employees recruiting friends and family, and incentives tied to five stars.

The rule: 16 CFR Part 465, effective October 21, 2024

The Federal Trade Commission published the Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials on August 22, 2024, effective sixty days later. Its definition of a consumer review is broad: "a consumer's evaluation, or a purported consumer's evaluation, of a product, service, or business that is submitted by the consumer or purported consumer and that is published to a website or platform dedicated in whole or in part to receiving and displaying such evaluations." Google Business Profile, Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack, Nextdoor, Facebook recommendations and your own site's review widget all qualify.

Six sections do the work.

The penalty. Rule violations carry civil penalties under 16 CFR 1.98 of up to $53,088 per violation, the level set January 17, 2025 and carried into 2026 without adjustment. The FTC's August 2024 release said the rule lets the agency "seek civil penalties against knowing violators." Each fake or bought review is a violation.

The first enforcement. On December 22, 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to ten companies. Trade press identified them as six property-management firms, three personal-injury law firms and an accounting firm, flagged for reviews that "misrepresent whether a reviewer's experience was positive or negative, or whether the reviewer used the product or service at all" and for "conditioning compensation or other incentives on reviewers expressing a particular sentiment." The letters "are not formal determinations," but they were sent to local service businesses of roughly a contractor's size, for conduct that came from employees recruiting friends and family.

Errata: what the ranking pages get wrong

What you may do: the FTC's own words

The FTC maintains a question-and-answer page on the rule and a 2022 marketer's guide to soliciting reviews. Together they draw the lines.

• Asking is fine. The rule regulates fake, bought, insider and suppressed reviews. It does not prohibit requesting reviews from customers who used your service.
• Ask everyone. "Don't ask for reviews only from customers you think will leave positive ones." (FTC guide, January 2022.)
• Ask only real customers. "Don't ask for reviews from people who haven't used or experienced the product or service."
• Incentives, carefully. "The rule does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews, as long as there isn't an express or implied requirement that the reviews have to express a particular sentiment." But the Endorsement Guides apply: "When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, and that connection is not reasonably expected by the audience, such connection must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously." A $20 gift card for "a review, good or bad" is legal under the rule only if the review says the customer got the $20. And Google bans it regardless (section 4), so for most contractors the practical answer is no incentives at all.
• Employees and family: disclose. "Yes, but ask them to clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationship to your business." In practice, a review that opens "I work here" is worth nothing to a homeowner, so this is a rule about what not to bother with.
• Organizing is not suppressing. "Organizing reviews is not suppressing reviews under the rule." Sorting by date, featuring a review on your site, or flagging a review that violates the platform's rules is fine. Hiding reviews because they are negative while claiming to show them all is not.

The platforms are stricter than the law

The consequence of ignoring a platform rule is not a fine; it is removal of the reviews, a warning badge (Yelp's Consumer Alert), or loss of the profile. For a local contractor the Google profile is the business, so Google's rule is the binding one.

The contract clause that is void

The Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 makes a form-contract term "void from the inception of such contract" if it "prohibits or restricts the ability of an individual who is a party to the form contract to engage in a covered communication," "imposes a penalty or fee against an individual … for engaging in a covered communication," or transfers the intellectual property in the review. And it is not merely unenforceable: "It shall be unlawful for a person to offer a form contract containing a provision described as void." A non-disparagement line in your service agreement is a violation the day you hand the customer the contract, whether or not anyone ever reviews you.

What the Act does not void: a clause requiring the customer to keep confidential genuinely proprietary information, or a defamation claim over a review that states false facts.

A review request that complies with all three

Send it to every customer, after the job is complete and paid, once, with no reward attached.

Thanks for choosing [Company] for your [service] on [date]. If you have a minute, we'd appreciate an honest review of the work. It helps other homeowners decide, good or bad. [Google review link]

What is deliberately absent: "if you were happy," "five stars," any discount, any mention of a future job, and any link that routes unhappy customers to a private form instead of the public one. That last pattern, the "feedback funnel" many review-request tools sell, is the selective solicitation Google prohibits.

If a customer leaves a false review. Reply publicly and factually, flag it under the platform's policy (false content, off-topic, conflict of interest), and keep records. A review that states false facts about your work can support a defamation claim; a review that states an opinion you dislike cannot, and a letter threatening to sue over it is the "unfounded or groundless legal threat" §465.7(a) names.

If an employee or relative already reviewed you. Ask them to add a disclosure or remove it. Under §465.5, knowing about an undisclosed insider review and doing nothing is itself the violation.

Method and limits

We read each section of the rule at Cornell's Legal Information Institute, the penalty amount in the eCFR, the FTC's releases and guidance on ftc.gov, and the platform policies on Google's and Yelp's own support pages, on the dates shown. The composition of the December 2025 warning-letter recipients comes from trade reporting, since the FTC did not name them. We did not research Angi, Thumbtack, Nextdoor or Facebook policies; each has its own, and all are subject to the federal rule. State consumer-protection statutes can add remedies and are not covered.

Last verified 2026-10-26. Not legal advice.