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Absolutely not true. Worked on this team for Google at one point and other than internal systems nothing can get reviews removed. Firms cant do anything, they are just swindling people out of money. Some of them will get fake reviews to try and drown out negative ones but its very short lived.

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Yet, reviews can be removed :).

Reviews can be removed if they are shown to violate Google policies. Also, legal action can be taken to remove a review. Google does not write law about what reviews are permanent.

Seems to me that if reputation firms are buying reviews and their effect is "short lived"... then those reviews are getting removed.

I thought the part about "only internal systems" would imply that external parties can not remove reviews. But if not then let me clarify, yes there are anti-abuse mechanisms that can remove reviews. But these are not based on customer complaints or how much they are paying Google for ads, they are based on Googles own internal policies which are designed to make sure the reviews are legitimate.

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