“Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0” by Kathleen Richards of East Bay Express alleges that salespeople at Yelp blur quite a few ethical lines in order to fill advertising spots and drive up revenue.
Yelp is a site that lets users sign up and review all sorts of establishments in their communities — restaurants, medical professionals, and pretty much any other local service. They claim to be “the real deal” and that they are simply “real people, writing real reviews” (see more on their About page).
The East Bay Express article paints Yelp as anything but “the real deal”, citing multiple sources, many anonymous, who claim that Yelp uses negative reviews as leverage to squeeze business owners for money. The author writes about a restaurateur who says he received so many calls offering to remove negative reviews of his business for a fee that he no longer answers calls from Yelp’s area code. This is supported by an anonymous former Yelp employee who claims that more than one salesperson has justified moving bad reviews as “helping the little guy”.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman responded to the East Bay Express article in “Kathleen Richards — East Bay Express” on the Official Yelp Blog. Stoppelman highlights the fact that most of Richards’ sources are anonymous, and argues that the presence of negative reviews for many of Yelp’s advertisers is evidence that other such reviews have not been removed.
Link via “Yelp offers to remove bad reviews for monthly fee!” on Digg.
