Is It Legal to Delete Trustpilot Reviews? What You Need to Know Before Taking Action

Receiving a negative review on Trustpilot can affect your company’s image instantly, and the natural reaction is usually to try to delete it as quickly as possible.

However, removing a review isn’t something you can do freely: there is a legal framework and an internal platform policy that determine when it is lawful to take down a comment and when doing so could backfire on you.

Before lifting a finger, it’s worth understanding what the law allows, what Trustpilot requires, and what steps you can take to protect your digital reputation without making mistakes that amplify the problem.

That’s the difference between managing the crisis with sound judgment or turning it into something much bigger.

Is it legal to delete Trustpilot reviews?

Yes, deleting Trustpilot reviews is legal, but only under specific circumstances.

European legislation and the platform’s own rules establish clear standards: it is permitted to remove ratings that violate the law or community guidelines, while authentic opinions, even unfavorable ones, are protected by the consumer’s right to free expression and cannot be erased.

That distinction marks the line between a valid claim and an attempt at censorship.

An honest criticism from a real customer will remain visible even if it harms you commercially, while a false, offensive, defamatory or bad-faith review can indeed be taken down through official channels.

Trustpilot has its own procedures for handling these cases, and the law provides additional backing when content crosses the line of what is permitted.

What does the law say about deleting reviews on Trustpilot?

European regulations, led by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), recognize the consumer’s right to share their experience with products and services.

That means an authentic review, even if unfavorable, is protected by freedom of expression and the right to information.

That said, this right has limits. When a review contains false statements, personal data published without consent, insulting language, or information that breaks current law, its removal is no longer optional and becomes enforceable.

In those scenarios, removing the content is perfectly legitimate from a legal standpoint.

Cases where you can legally remove a review

There are very specific circumstances in which requesting the removal of a review is fully justified.

The most common situations where removal is lawful are:

• Defamatory content that attributes false facts to the business or its representatives.
• Insults, offensive language, threats, or discriminatory expressions directed at employees or customers.
• Personal information published without permission, such as names, photographs, or contact details.
• Reviews written by competitors posing as real customers.
• Opinions about experiences that never happened or about products the author never purchased.
• Spam, promotional links, or comments unrelated to the service provided.

When a review fits one of these scenarios, the report to Trustpilot usually succeeds.

And, if the reputational damage is serious, you can also pursue removal through civil or criminal courts with strong chances of success.

Trustpilot’s official policy on review removal

Trustpilot has very specific Community Guidelines that regulate which reviews are acceptable and which are not.

Its Content Integrity Team reviews reported cases and can take down publications that violate these rules, even if they have been visible on the profile for months.

The platform requires every comment to reflect a real experience with the business being evaluated, to be based on verifiable facts, and to respect minimum standards of civility.

Reviews that fail to meet these criteria can be removed either at the request of the affected user or on Trustpilot’s own initiative.

One thing should be clear: simply disagreeing with the content is not enough to secure removal. You need to argue precisely why that publication violates the guidelines or applicable law, and provide evidence whenever you have it.

When it makes sense to take legal action

If Trustpilot dismisses your claim and the review continues to cause clear harm to your business, the courts offer a complementary path.

The civil route allows you to seek the rectification or suppression of defamatory content and, in some cases, compensation for damages.

In Spain, for example (and across the rest of the European Union), case law has repeatedly sided with companies harmed by false reviews, especially when bad faith, unfair competition, or intent to harm can be proven. The process requires gathering evidence such as screenshots, witnesses, contracts, or internal records, and having specialized legal counsel.

Going to court shouldn’t be your first option, but it is a legitimate tool when the platform’s internal mechanisms fail to resolve the situation.

Conclusion: How to protect your Trustpilot reputation legally and strategically

Removing a review on Trustpilot is entirely legal as long as the content violates the law or the platform’s rules.

What isn’t legitimate is manipulating opinions through pressure, buying fake ratings, or demanding the takedown of honest criticism: those practices can backfire and make the reputational problem you were trying to solve much worse.