HolidayCheck study reveals rising deletion of critical online reviews

A study by the review portal HolidayCheck reveals that critical online reviews are increasingly being deleted. According to the representative study, approximately 31 percent of people who posted an online review in the last two years experienced the deletion of at least one of their entries. For 12 percent of respondents, this occurred multiple times.

Negative or predominantly negative reviews are disproportionately affected, accounting for 45 percent of all deleted content. In contrast, only 16 percent of deleted reviews were positive. Jonas Ertlmaier, head of fraud detection at HolidayCheck, stated that the deletion of critical reviews is no longer a marginal phenomenon and emphasized that inconvenient experiences should not disappear from the internet.

In Germany, providers can challenge the authenticity of a review by disputing whether the reviewer was an actual customer or guest. The study indicates that 52 percent of Germans are aware that reviews can be deleted in this manner.