In a nutshell, a man from Munich once “classified” his visit to the disco.
Now the Google stars from back then are causing trouble.
Munich – It's been eleven years since Martin W.* had an apparently passable evening in the 089 bar.
After his visit, he rated the Munich nightclub on Google: with three stars, without giving any further details in a comment.
"I don't remember why," he explains today, "apparently I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't think it was great either."
The man from Munich would not have thought that he would deal with his assessment again.
In March 2023, W. found an email from Google in his mailbox.
In it he learns that the 089 Bar hired a law firm to take action against his rating.
The three-star judgment could be classified as "defamatory criticism", reads W. Under certain circumstances, "legal prosecution" is conceivable.
The man from Munich no longer understands the world: "What kind of joke is that supposed to be?"
Eleven years after visiting a disco in Munich: Man should delete Google rating
The stumbling block can be found in the attached email from the law firm: "The user name of the reviewer is not listed in our client's customer file, nor can the review or the name of the reviewer be assigned to a contact or an event at our client's. W. should provide "corresponding evidence" for his past disco night.
Google has given him a deadline of seven calendar days for this.
"I should now prove my visit eleven years ago with an invoice," W. describes the problem from his vantage point.
How does the 089 Bar now deal with the subject of reviews?
The club operators initially left an inquiry from our editors about the specific case unanswered.
Google rating for 089 Bar: Expert sees a normal request for deletion
In its letter, the law firm refers to "case law" that has already been issued in comparable cases and holds out the prospect of further action: "Should we remain without feedback, we will advise our clients to enforce the deletion with judicial help." W. has the reference -Mail from Google responded with pithy words.
Deleting the post of his own free will is not an option for him.
At the request of our editors, Dr.
Inge Schneider the situation.
"This is a completely normal request for deletion to Google, of the kind that occurs thousands of times these days," explains the Munich specialist lawyer for copyright.
"If the reviewer does not give a statement to Google, in particular if he cannot prove any customer contact, the review will simply be deleted."
However, W. cannot understand the discotheque's approach: "I don't want to know what those wrote to those who aggressively commented on their 1 or 2 star ratings.
Are they now in jail?
Or worse: banned from the house?” With a total of 1193 Google reviews, the 089 Bar currently has an average of 3.1 stars (as of March 21).
In the most recent comments, many other visitors state that they have been confronted with a past rating by Google.
Munich's underground stations have also received controversial Google ratings: one station performs particularly poorly with many passengers.
*Name changed by editors.
List of rubrics: © Screenshot Google/Sigi Jantz
