Two different people type this phrase and they want opposite things. A customer wants to say something true without their full name sitting under it for the next decade. A business owner wants to know whether the one star that turned up last week could have been written by a competitor with nothing at stake.
Both halves have the same answer underneath, and the pages that rank for this only ever write one of them.
There is no private review
Google's help page on finding your Maps contributions says it without hedging: "Reviews, photos, and ratings are public in Google Maps. You can't post reviews, photos, or ratings privately on Maps."
So there is no anonymous mode and no private submission that reaches the owner and nobody else. Whatever you write is a public post attached to a Google profile. The only thing in play is which name that profile shows.
What you can change is the display name
Google lets an account post under a name that is not the name on the account. In your Maps profile settings, you check the box next to "Use a custom display name & picture for posting", then set the name and the picture you want to appear.
Google is specific about where that reaches. The custom name and picture "are shown with your public contributions across Google Maps and Search", which covers reviews, photos, videos, and questions and answers. It also says they will not appear when you privately save lists or labels, add a reaction, or suggest an edit.
That sentence is the whole story. The name is a display setting, not a privacy setting. To the business and to anyone reading the profile you are a pseudonym. To Google you are the same signed-in account you were before, with the same history attached.
If the goal is that the business can never work out who wrote it, no setting on Google delivers that. What the setting does deliver is a review that is not filed publicly under your legal name and your face, which is a narrower goal and a reachable one.
If you are the one writing it
Set the name first, then post. You can edit a review afterwards, and our walkthrough of editing a Google review covers how, but the first version was already public while you were changing it.
Then write the review you would have written with your own name on it. A pseudonym is a fair privacy choice. It is not cover for a post you would not sign, and Google's policies attach to the content, not to the name above it.
If you are the owner reading a name you do not recognise
Here is the half of this question nobody writes for you.
An unfamiliar name proves nothing on its own. It can be a customer posting under a nickname, a spouse's account, a booking taken in one name and paid for in another, or a display name someone set years ago and forgot.
What Google actually prohibits is narrower than "a review I disagree with", and it is worth reading in its own words before you file anything. Its prohibited content policy bars fake engagement, meaning "Content that is not based on a real experience or does not accurately represent the location or product in question." It bars content "based on a conflict of interest", which it says "may include current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations that demonstrate a conflict of interest (such as industry competitors, familial relationships, etc.)", and it tells users not to "Post content on a competitor's place or business to undermine that business' or product's reputation." Separately it bars impersonation: "Content posted or shared seeking to impersonate any person, group, or organization."
Line those up against the review in front of you and the test becomes clear. A pseudonymous review describing a real visit breaks none of them. A competitor's review breaks the conflict of interest rule whether it is signed or not. The case you can make is about the content, never about the name, so gather what shows the visit did not happen rather than what shows the name is odd.
What Google's review policy forbids works through the rest of that list, and removing a Google review covers the reporting route and what it realistically achieves.
The defence that actually works is arithmetic
You do not control who posts, and you do not control what name they choose. You control how many genuine reviews are standing next to theirs.
On a profile carrying a long run of recent reviews from real jobs, one strange post is a line in a list. On a profile carrying a handful, the same post is a large share of everything a searcher reads before deciding whether to call you. Nothing about that is marketing advice, it is division.
Which makes the boring mechanical part the important part: ask every customer, every time, with one link that lands on the correct listing. Our Google review link generator builds that link from your own profile, and ReviewKit sends it after the job so nobody on your team has to remember to.
One thing not to do on the way: do not ask only the customers you expect to be pleased. Filtering the ask by the answer you are hoping for is review gating, and this product does not offer it by design. It also does not help with the problem on this page, because the review you are worried about was never going to arrive through your own request link.