Yelp - Yikes! Conclusion

Yelp Under Fire

It appears that the trouble started for Yelp when one of their ambitious sales people contacted a local business and told them that for a "price" he could make sure their negative comments “disappear”. In an interview with dozens of other businesses over several months, 6 people told the news reporters they had received similar calls. Six others who refused advertising found that positive reviews disappeared – or negative comments appeared. It was further discovered that at least 1 Yelp employee wrote a negative review on a business who refused to advertise. Yelp officials deny the allegations. Is this legal? Probably. Highly unethical? Absolutely!

There have been several lawsuits filed by business owners against reviewers. On November 3, 2009, a Yelp user was confronted by the owner of a bookstore in San Francisco, in his home. The user had posted a review criticizing the store and received a string of angry messages towards him, which he revealed through screenshots. The user called the police, who arrested the bookstore owner, and obtained a restraining order.

Businesses may advertise with Yelp for preferred search result placement and extra listing features. For the advertising fee, the business can include an individualized message and photo slide show on their web page for its listing as well as receive reports on listing traffic. Additionally, these advertisers, called "Sponsors" on the site, are allowed to highlight a specific review and communicate with reviewers.

In the aftermath, Yelp recently announced that business owners will be able to publicly answer negative posts.

There are reports that Yelp has changed its way but there is no evidence that the negative publicity has hurt Yelp.

Yelp has more than 16 million visitors to its site each month, more than 4.5 million reviews have been written, and has raised $31million in funding to date

 I'm Just Sayin