Fake Reviews in Saudi Arabia and the UAE (2026): What Google, the Law and Platforms Say, and How to Respond in Arabic and English

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Oct. 2, 2026

Fake reviews break Google’s rules and Gulf consumer law at once. Google’s Maps policy bans paid, incentivised, gated and conflict-of-interest reviews, and Google blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025. Saudi Arabia’s E-Commerce Law caps fines for false electronic claims at SAR 1 million, and UAE rules fine misleading advertising AED 250,000. We found no review-specific statute in either country.

Key takeaways

Google bans more than bought reviews. Review gating, staff review quotas and asking customers to mention a named employee are all against the Maps policy.

A profile caught with fake engagement can lose new reviews for a set period, have existing reviews unpublished, and carry a public warning banner.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE regulate fake reviews through general rules on false and misleading advertising, not through a dedicated review law.

Saudi PDPL Article 15 limits what a business can disclose in a public reply, so “we checked your booking” replies carry legal risk.

Google says Gemini uses Maps user reviews to ground answers, so review text now feeds AI answers as well as star ratings.

This article is general information, not legal advice. For a ruling on your case, consult a licensed lawyer and the regulator, the Saudi Ministry of Commerce or the UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism.

What does Google count as a fake review in 2026?

Google counts any review that does not reflect a genuine experience as fake engagement and removes it. That covers paid reviews, reviews posted from several accounts by one person, reviews written in exchange for discounts or gifts, and reviews posted on a competitor’s profile to damage it. Conflict-of-interest reviews from staff or family count too.

The rules sit in the Maps user-generated content policy, which we read on 2 October 2026. Two sections matter for Gulf businesses. “Fake engagement” covers content that is not based on a real experience, including reviews paid for “directly or in kind”. “Rating manipulation” covers incentivised and biased reviews, plus unusual volumes or patterns of reviews.

The second section is where many Gulf clinics, restaurants and showrooms slip. Google does not allow merchants to:

Offer payment, discounts, free goods or services for a review, or for editing or removing a negative one.
Discourage negative reviews or selectively ask only happy customers. That practice is called review gating.
Pressure customers to review while still on the premises, or request specific content.
Set staff targets for a number of reviews, or ask for reviews that name a staff member.

What Google does allow is simple: ask every customer for an honest review, with no incentive and no steer on the rating or wording.

What happens to a Business Profile caught buying reviews?

Google removes the fake reviews and can restrict the whole profile. Its Business Profile restrictions page lists three sanctions: no new reviews for a set period, existing reviews unpublished for a set period, and a public warning that fake reviews were removed. Google emails the owner first, and the owner can appeal.

The scale of enforcement is large. In its 16 April 2026 Maps update, Google said it blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025 and removed over 13 million fake Business Profiles. It also placed posting restrictions on more than 782,000 accounts. For comparison, Google reported over 240 million blocked or removed reviews for 2024 in its 7 April 2025 post.

The April 2026 post also describes the extortion pattern many Gulf owners report: a wave of fake one-star reviews followed by a demand for payment to remove them. Google says its systems now detect that scam pattern. On a sudden spike of spam reviews, Google removes the content, pauses new reviews, alerts the owner and shows consumers a banner explaining the pause. Google described the rollout as global “in the coming weeks” from April 2026. It gave no country dates, so we cannot confirm when it reached Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

Google policy vs Saudi law vs UAE law

Google’s policy names fake reviews directly, while Saudi and UAE law reach them through rules on false or misleading advertising. The table sets the three side by side. Penalty figures come from the legal texts and translations linked in the sections that follow, and the table says so where no review-specific rule exists.

Question	Google Maps policy	Saudi Arabia	United Arab Emirates
Does a rule name fake reviews?	Yes: fake engagement and rating manipulation sections	No review-specific rule found; E-Commerce Law Article 11 bans false or misleading claims in electronic advertising	No review-specific rule found; Consumer Protection Law Article 17 bans misleading description and advertising
Incentives for reviews	Prohibited	Not addressed by name	Not addressed by name
Review gating	Prohibited	Not addressed by name	Not addressed by name
Who enforces	Google	Ministry of Commerce, through its committee for e-commerce violations	Ministry of Economy and Tourism and emirate consumer protection authorities; UAE Media Council for advertising content on media and social platforms
Stated penalty	Review removal, review pause, unpublished reviews, public warning, account restrictions	Warning, fine up to SAR 1,000,000, suspension of e-commerce activity, store blocking (Article 18)	AED 250,000 for misleading description or advertising, doubled on repetition (Cabinet Decision 66/2023, Addendum 2); media content fines from AED 10,000 to AED 100,000 for misleading or fake content (Cabinet Decision 42/2025)
Personal data in replies	Not a policy topic for replies	PDPL Article 15 limits disclosure; SDAIA enforces	Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on personal data protection

Treat the Saudi and UAE rows as the route a regulator would most likely use, not as settled case law. We found no published decision in either country that fined a business specifically for buying reviews.

Is posting or buying fake reviews illegal in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia has no statute that names fake reviews. A business that publishes or commissions fake reviews to sell a product falls under the E-Commerce Law, whose Article 11 bans false offers, statements or claims that directly or indirectly mislead consumers. Article 18 sets penalties up to SAR 1 million plus suspension or blocking.

The E-Commerce Law was issued by Royal Decree No. M/126 of 1440 and took effect on 24 October 2019. We read Articles 10, 11 and 18 in an English legal summary of the law, because the Bureau of Experts site did not load for us on 2 October 2026. Under Article 10, an electronic advertisement forms part of the contract. Under Article 11, it must not contain a false claim or a mark the seller has no right to use. If the Ministry finds a breach, the seller must remove the advertisement within one day of notice.

Enforcement is real, if not review-specific. The Ministry of Commerce penalised 44 online stores under the law, with fines up to SAR 1 million and site blocking, as Saudi Gazette reported from SPA. The report did not say whether any case involved reviews.

A United Nations ESCWA country profile notes that the Ministry published a draft Consumer Protection Law for consultation in April 2022, covering advertising among other topics. We could not confirm that it has been enacted. Saudi Arabia also applies the GCC unified law on combating commercial fraud, but we found no provision in it that names reviews.

What UAE law covers fake reviews?

The UAE also lacks a review-specific rule. Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 on Consumer Protection bans describing a product with false particulars or advertising it in a misleading way (Article 17). Cabinet Decision No. 66 of 2023 sets the fine for that breach at AED 250,000, doubled for a repeat offence.

The fine schedule appears in Addendum 2 of the Executive Regulation hosted by the Ministry of Economy and Tourism, issued on 3 July 2023. Article 8 of the same regulation defines a deceptive advertisement as one with a claim that creates a false or misleading impression. Its list includes the expected results of using a product and claims about awards, certifications or quality marks. A wall of invented five-star reviews promising a result fits that definition, though the text does not mention reviews by name.

A second regime covers content on media and social platforms. Cabinet Decision No. 42 of 2025, under Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023 on media regulation, took effect on 29 May 2025. According to a Clyde & Co summary, it sets fines of AED 10,000 to AED 100,000 for publishing misleading or fake content. Influencers paid to post fake product reviews sit closer to this regime than to the consumer law.

If you are not sure which of these rules your last review campaign touched, check our review requests against Google and Gulf rules.

What the Saudi PDPL allows in a public reply

A public reply is a disclosure. Article 15 of Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law allows disclosure of personal data only in listed cases, such as consent, a public source, or a legitimate interest that neither harms the person nor involves sensitive data. Confirming a visit, an order or a diagnosis in a reply fails that test.

We read Article 15 in the Law text on SDAIA’s data governance platform. The reviewer chose to post their own words. They did not consent to the business adding booking dates, invoice values, test results or a full name pulled from the CRM. Health data is sensitive data under the Law, so the legitimate-interest route is closed for clinics, labs and pharmacies.

The same Law shapes what happens after the reply. If you move the conversation offline and later want to market to that reviewer, Article 25 still requires their consent and an opt-out. A complaint handled by WhatsApp does not create a marketing list. Our guide to PDPL rules for email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing covers that consent step. SDAIA committees issued 48 violation decisions in 2025, and disclosure without a legal basis was one of the four violation types it named.

UAE businesses answer to Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on personal data protection. The practical rule is the same in both countries: reply about the experience and keep the customer’s record out of it.

A bilingual response framework for Gulf reviews

Use one structure in both languages and change only the register. Reply in the language the reviewer used, keep to five parts, and move any case detail to a private channel. The framework below works for genuine praise, genuine complaints and suspected fake reviews, with the limits that Google policy and the PDPL set.

Gulf reviewers write in Modern Standard Arabic, Gulf dialect, English, or Arabic typed in Latin letters. Answer Arabic reviews in clear, warm Modern Standard Arabic with light Gulf phrasing, and avoid machine translation of an English template. Answer English reviews in English. If a review mixes both, reply in the language of its first sentence and add one line in the other.

Part	Genuine complaint	Suspected fake review	What never goes in
1. Greeting	Thank the reviewer by the display name shown	Neutral greeting, no thanks for a false claim	Full names from your records
2. Acknowledge	Name the issue in one sentence	State that you take every review seriously	Arguing about the star rating
3. Fact	One fact about the fix, such as a changed process	Say you could not match the description to your service, without citing records	Dates, invoices, diagnoses, order numbers
4. Route	A named channel: the branch email or a general number	The same channel, so a real customer can reach you	A staff member’s personal phone
5. Sign-off	Role, such as “Patient Experience Team”	Role only	Offers or refunds in exchange for editing the review

Two rules sit outside the table. Report a suspected fake review through Google’s Reviews Management Tool, which allows one appeal per review, and reply anyway, because removal takes days. And never offer a discount for an edited review. Google lists that exact offer as prohibited.

Why do AI assistants now read your reviews?

AI answers about local businesses draw on review text, not only star averages. Google states that Grounding with Google Maps in the Gemini API uses places data and “related content like user reviews” to generate responses. Its Ask Maps feature analyses reviews from more than 500 million contributors, though it launched only in the US and India.

The Grounding statement comes from Google’s 17 October 2025 developer post. Ask Maps launched on 12 March 2026, and Google has published no Gulf rollout date. OpenAI has not published how ChatGPT weighs reviews, so nobody outside OpenAI can state its method.

Consumer behaviour is moving faster than the documentation. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey, published 10 March 2026 from a panel of 1,002 US adults, found 45% had used AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier. In the same survey, 88% of AI users said they check whether reviews cited by AI are legitimate. No equivalent survey exists for Saudi Arabia or the UAE that we could find.

For a Gulf business, the lesson is narrow. Detailed, specific reviews in both languages give an AI system more to quote than a run of one-word five-star ratings. Our guide on how to get cited by ChatGPT covers the rest of the signals, and our search engine reputation management guide covers the wider search results page.

Our read

Buying reviews is a bad trade in the Gulf on every axis we checked. Google’s detection is improving, the sanction is a public warning on your profile, and two legal regimes already cover false advertising. The reward, a few tenths of a star, is small next to a review pause during your busiest month.

Gating and staff quotas are a more common risk for Gulf businesses than bought reviews: a tablet at the counter for happy customers, a WhatsApp link sent only after a five-star survey score, or a monthly review target per branch. Google prohibits all three, and many teams run them without knowing.

We would ask every customer, in their language, with one neutral link and no incentive. Reply to every review within the five-part structure. Report fakes with evidence, and send the extortion pattern to Google the day it starts. Leave legal action to defamation or extortion cases, and take those to a licensed lawyer rather than to a reply box.

FAQ

Can I give customers a discount for leaving a Google review?

No. Google’s Maps policy prohibits offering payment, discounts, free goods or services in exchange for a review, or for editing or removing a negative one. Reviews posted because of an incentive are removed, and Google can restrict the whole profile. You can ask every customer for an honest review, as long as nothing is offered in return.

A competitor is posting fake one-star reviews on our profile. What do we do?

Report each review through Google’s Reviews Management Tool and keep screenshots with dates. Google lists posting on a competitor’s profile to damage it as fake engagement. Reply calmly to each review in case real customers read it. If someone demands payment to stop, report it, because Google now targets that scam pattern directly.

Is it illegal to buy Google reviews in Saudi Arabia?

No Saudi law names fake reviews. A business using invented reviews to sell online falls under the E-Commerce Law, whose Article 11 bans false or misleading claims in electronic advertising, with fines up to SAR 1 million under Article 18. Google can also restrict your profile. This is general information, not legal advice.

Can our clinic mention a patient’s visit when replying to a bad review?

No. Saudi PDPL Article 15 allows disclosure of personal data only in listed cases, and health data is sensitive, which removes the legitimate-interest route. Do not confirm the visit, the doctor seen or any result. Thank the reviewer, describe a process change, and give a general contact channel for a private follow-up.

Does asking only happy customers for reviews break Google’s rules?

Yes. Google’s policy prohibits merchants from selectively soliciting positive reviews or discouraging negative ones, a practice called review gating. Sending the review link only after a high survey score is the most common form. Send the same neutral request to every customer, and avoid staff quotas or asks to name a specific employee.

What should your reviews prove?

Most Gulf owners ask whether fake reviews are illegal. A more useful question is what your reviews prove to a customer, to Google and now to an AI system reading them. A rating built on gating or incentives proves nothing and can disappear behind a warning banner.

If your review requests already go to every customer with no incentive, put your effort into replies: five parts, the customer’s language, no personal data. If your process includes a counter tablet, a filtered WhatsApp link or branch targets, fix that first, because it breaks Google’s policy today.

See how our reviews show up in Google and AI answers