Review gating is asking customers how they feel first, then routing only the happy ones to the marketplace review page while diverting unhappy ones to a private form. It inflates ratings by filtering who gets to speak — and Amazon, Google and the FTC all prohibit it.
Why sellers do it accidentally
Most gating isn't malicious — it's a well-meaning "how did we do?" step where the low-rating branch simply never shows the review link. If any customer's path to the marketplace depends on their rating, it's gating.
The compliant alternative
Every customer sees the same review step. Unhappy customers are additionally offered a support route to fix their problem — which resolves most complaints before they become reviews, without ever hiding the review option. That's how every ReviewBuddie funnel is built, by design.