Google Maps in Germany now shows defamation complaint amounts, so here's a calculator to find a place's real rating

Google Maps has finally started showing how many takedown requests they get for reviews. In Germany and many other countries in the European Union, it's legal for venues like hotels, cafes and restaurants to send takedowns for defamation for honest reviews.

Lots of my reviews in Europe (and Dubai!) have been removed and Google Maps has banned my girlfriend from reviewing in Europe. And when I got scammed by a restaurant in Argentina, my review about it (and everyone else's) was also removed.

Firstly, it's ridiculous that's it's legal to remove reviews so easily, and it says something about the decrease in freedom of speech in Europe and the rest of the world. Secondly, it makes Google Maps unusable. We now have a situation where a large share of reviews and ratings are already fake, and the remaining honest ones are now easily removed by venue owners.

Google in its defense is in a tight spot, it has to follow local German and European law, which forces them to respond to defamation takedowns. Let's say Google would disagree with the takedown though, they'd have to fight it in court and imagine fighting 100,000+ or more takedowns in court. They can't and won't.

What they can do legally is show how many defamation takedowns each venue gets. Which is a great and cheeky way to incentivize venues to not send takedowns.

My friend @javilopen had an idea of a calculator to find the actual rating of a place based on the takedowns, essentially bringing the ratings that were removed back with some simple math. So I made it and you can use it above.