Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Yelp's Entering Dangerous Territory


(image from the East Bay Express)

I posted a while ago about the issues with reviews and the things you have to concern yourself with in the generation of that kind of content. In the local space, Yelp is definitely the leader in review content, but a while back they had an article written about them (more than one actually) indicating that they basically engage in extortion, offering to remove bad reviews only if advertisers pay them and removing good reviews for those who don't.

After that initial wave of stories came out, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman came out and vehemently denied them. He posted on their blog and stated they were outright lies. However, the stories didn't stop coming and now a new story has been posted (by the same person writing the original one) naming names of businesses that received this treatment and going into a lot of detail about these practices (even naming salespeople). I have no idea whether this is true or not, but even allegations of impropriety like this can permanently damage a business. Stoppelman really needs to come forward and, if this is true, needs to be clear about it, make a mea culpa, and outline how they are going to make sure it doesn't happen again. If it isn't true, he needs to go open kimono and show the world just how their process works, so he once and for all disproves this before it gains (additional) life of its own. It may not be the best option, but this could go downhill quickly.

East Bay Express | News | Yelp Extortion Allegations Stack Up


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