Brown Bag Seminar Industrial Economics

This project studies how the removal of negative online reviews through defamation claims affects firms’ digital reputation. Using data from Google Maps and comparison platforms such as Booking and Tripadvisor, we examine whether firms with removed reviews appear more favorably rated on Google relative to their ratings elsewhere. The results provide evidence of rating laundering: review removals are associated with higher Google ratings across several sectors, including food, hotels, medical services, and clinics. These findings suggest that defamation-based review removals can systematically alter online ratings and affect the information consumers observe when evaluating firms.