Consumer Review Fairness Act
CRFA / non-disparagement clause / gag clause / 15 U.S.C. 45b
The Consumer Review Fairness Act voids contract terms that stop customers reviewing you. A provision of a standard-form contract is void from the start if it bars a review, penalizes one, or takes the reviewer's intellectual property. Removing abusive or irrelevant content is still allowed.
The statute does something unusual. It does not fine you for the clause, it deletes it. A provision of a form contract is void from the inception of such contract if such provision prohibits or restricts the ability of an individual who is a party to the form contract to engage in a covered communication. The same applies to a provision that imposes a penalty or fee against an individual who is a party to the form contract for engaging in a covered communication, and to one that takes the reviewer's intellectual property in the review.
Form contract has a definition worth knowing, because it is what brings ordinary terms and conditions inside the law. It means standardized terms imposed on an individual without a meaningful opportunity for such individual to negotiate the standardized terms. Online terms nobody reads are the central case rather than an edge case. The statute carves out one relationship explicitly: form contract does not include an employer-employee or independent contractor contract.
What counts as a review is broad. The FTC says the law protects a broad variety of honest consumer assessments, including online reviews, social media posts, uploaded photos, videos, and adds that it also applies to consumer evaluations of a company's customer service. So this is not only about star ratings on one platform.
The law still leaves you room, and the room is specific. A company may prohibit or remove content that contains confidential or private information, that is libelous, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, that is unrelated to its products or services, or that is clearly false or misleading. The FTC then closes the obvious loophole in one sentence: it is unlikely that an assessment or opinion you disagree with meets the clearly false or misleading standard.
In practice
This cuts two ways for a business buying services. Your own terms, and any terms a supplier drafts for you, may contain a non-disparagement clause that is already void and doing nothing except suggesting you would use it. And when you are the customer, a clause restricting what you may say about a supplier is worth reading against this law before you decide it binds you.
Not the same as
- Removing a specific review
- The law is about contract provisions, not about moderation. Taking down abusive or irrelevant content is explicitly preserved.
- Defamation
- The statute says nothing here affects a civil cause of action for defamation. An untrue statement of fact is a separate matter with its own rules.
Why it matters to you
Non-disparagement language survives in templates long after it stopped working. It also costs more than it protects. A clause void from inception cannot be enforced, and its presence is the kind of thing regulators and journalists notice. The FTC says Congress gave enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission and the state Attorneys General. It adds that a violation of the CRFA will be treated the same as violating an FTC rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice.
What to ask or check
- 01Do our terms, or any supplier's, restrict what a customer may publish about us?
- 02Does any agreement ask a customer to hand over rights in their own review?
- 03When we remove a review, which of the permitted grounds are we relying on?
What people get wrong
That a non-disparagement clause is simply unenforceable in practice. The statute is stronger than that: such a provision of a form contract is void from the inception of the contract, so it never had effect at all.
Red flags
- Terms and conditions that mention reviews at all, beyond a moderation policy.
- An agreement that claims rights in content a customer writes about you.
- A review removed because somebody disagreed with the opinion in it.
Who owns it
Whoever approves the contract template, which is usually not whoever answers the reviews.
Where you will see it
In online terms and conditions, in service agreements drafted from a template, and in the settlement letter nobody should be sending.