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In summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Reviews must be published within 30 days<\/li>\n
- They must be verifiable with proof of purchase or service documentation<\/li>\n
- Any incentive in exchange for reviews is prohibited<\/li>\n
- Reviews older than 24 months can be contested<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
<\/span>What the Italian regulation on online reviews says<\/span><\/h2>\nThe new Italian regulation establishes that an online review is considered lawful<\/strong> only if it meets certain precise requirements. The goal is to reduce the impact of fake, delayed, or unverifiable reviews and to make the relationship between platforms, customers, and businesses more transparent.<\/p>\n<\/span>1. The review must be published within 30 days<\/span><\/h3>\nThe customer has a maximum of 30 days from the use of the service<\/strong> to publish the review. A review posted a long time after the stay, meal, or experience becomes more easily contestable.<\/p>\nWhat this means for hotels and restaurants:<\/strong> if you receive a negative review long after the service date, you have a concrete element to report it and dispute its credibility.<\/p>\n<\/span>2. The review must be verifiable<\/span><\/h3>\nThe online review must be traceable to proof of the service received: receipt, invoice, booking, ticket, or other document consistent with the purchase or stay.<\/p>\n
What this means:<\/strong> a review without proof is not automatically false, but it is weaker in terms of verifiability and therefore more easily contestable.<\/p>\n<\/span>3. No incentives in exchange for the review<\/span><\/h3>\nOffering discounts, gifts, vouchers, upgrades, or other advantages in exchange for online reviews is prohibited. This principle also applies when a positive review is not explicitly requested, but simply a review “in exchange” for something.<\/p>\n
What this means:<\/strong> any incentive, even informal, can become problematic. It is advisable to immediately remove messages, internal scripts, or automatisms that link economic benefits to review requests.<\/p>\n<\/span>Attention: incentives were already against platform policies<\/span><\/h2>\nFor many businesses, this is an important clarification: the prohibition of incentivizing reviews did not come out of nowhere. In particular, Google Maps already prohibits incentivized reviews<\/strong> and considers them a form of fake engagement<\/strong>. This means that offering discounts, gifts, or prizes in exchange for a review was already a risky practice even before the new Italian regulation came into effect.<\/p>\nIn other words, Italian law reinforces a principle that was already present in the policies of some platforms: today, however, for those operating in Italy, the issue becomes even more relevant on an operational and reputational level.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Online reviews after 24 months: what happens<\/span><\/h2>\nThe Italian regulation also introduces a very important principle: online reviews older than 24 months become contestable<\/strong> because they no longer reliably represent the current situation of a structure or service.<\/p>\n