Review gating is the practice of asking customers how they feel before deciding whether to invite a public review. Happy customers get the Google link. Unhappy ones get a private feedback form.
It is still widely sold. It is against Google's policy, and it is a worse commercial strategy than the compliant alternative.
What the policy actually says
Google's review policies prohibit soliciting reviews selectively — including discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, and selectively requesting them from customers likely to leave positive ones. The mechanism does not matter. A sentiment question that routes people down different paths is selective solicitation, whether it is a form, an SMS flow or a tablet by the till.
Enforcement is uneven, which is why the practice persists. Uneven enforcement is not permission.
The risk you are actually taking
The immediate risk is review removal — a filtered batch disappearing, taking your rating with it. The larger risk is your profile: repeated policy violations contribute to suspension, and a suspended profile takes your local visibility with it overnight.
The risk that gets overlooked is commercial. Gating tools sit between you and your unhappiest customers, and they are usually sold on that as a feature. Those are the customers whose problems you most need to hear.
Why the compliant version works better
Send every customer the same link, to the public review form.
Your rating becomes informative. A 4.9 built from filtered invitations tells you nothing. A 4.6 built from everyone tells you exactly where you stand.
Negative reviews are cheaper than silence. A public complaint about a twenty-minute wait is a specific, free operational signal. The same customer who says nothing and never returns costs more.
Consumers do not trust perfection. Ratings clustered near five with no critical reviews read as filtered. A visible mix, answered well, converts better than a suspiciously flawless wall.
Replies are read by future customers. A good reply to a bad review is a conversion asset. Gating removes the chance to write one.
What is allowed
You can ask every customer for a review. You can ask by email, SMS or in person. You can time the request for when the experience is fresh. You can remind once. You can make it easy with a direct link.
What you cannot do is decide who gets asked based on how they feel.
Doing it properly
Ask everyone, on the same timing rule. Keep the wording neutral — "tell us how it went," not "leave us a five-star review." Send the same link regardless. Then answer what arrives, negatives first.
Run a separate, clearly-labelled operational feedback survey if you want private detail. That is legitimate. What makes it gating is using the answer to decide who sees the review link.