Recently, I independently reviewed a local IT company that I have experience with through an employer on Google. I was asked to take my review down by the company’s owner for seemingly bogus reasons. Here is the full, unedited text of my review prior to taking it down (no names are mentioned):

They’re good at the basics of IT in my experience, particularly where Windows is involved and in simple scenarios.

Their Mac expertise is very low and they’ve been unable to help resolve several Mac-related issues I’ve been involved with. Their Linux expertise is seemingly non-existent. This is to be expected with many IT companies in the business world who focus on Microsoft products, but should be called out.

They maintain a large amount of bloatware/spyware on Windows/Mac machines as part of their service. Issues with this software has caused days of lost productivity, and most of it seems very unnecessary. There are better alternatives out there for security and remote access, but they likely don’t offer as good of partner programs for IT companies who utilize them.

The basics are all there, there seems to be pretty good knowledge of general business hardware and software, Windows servers, and networking. I would recommend them if that’s what you need. If you have a more advanced situation, if you have a mix of various types of operating systems and need support for all of them, or if you’re looking for a lightweight solution with a small software footprint, your mileage may vary.

Suggestion: Offer better all-around platform support, or avoid touching other platforms altogether. Additionally, re-evaluate what software products you install on your clients' machines. In my humble opinion, that’s how you could improve to being an outstanding IT support company.

Since this was posted, they reached out to my employer, asking them to require me to take down the review, even though it was a personal review not posted for my employer. They also cited a confidentiality agreement that I didn’t sign and didn’t know existed, and that I firmly believe does not bar me from sharing my personal opinions about the company.

My review was 3/5 stars, and the content seems fairly constructive to me. I don’t feel it deserved to be silenced. Considering the only other review of the company is a 5-star review from a couple of years ago, it makes me wonder how many other reviews have been silenced.

No names until I’m more sure that neither I nor my employer can get in trouble for it, but there it is, the unedited text of my suppressed review. Suppress that!