Yelp & Extortion: An Investigative Report
Fohboh made us aware of a very interesting article uncovering a practice of restaurants being persistently solicited about the removal of negative reviews from their profile page. Imagine! While Yelp claims this is not their policy, the article indicates that several employees have come forward confirming this practice. And it gets even uglier!
“Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.
Many business owners, like John, feel so threatened by Yelp’s power to harm their business that they declined to be interviewed unless their identities were concealed. (John is not the restaurant owner’s real name.) Several business owners likened Yelp to the Mafia, and one said she feared its retaliation. “Every time I had a sales person call me and I said, ‘Sorry, it doesn’t make sense for me to do this,’ … then all of a sudden reviews start disappearing.” To these mom-and-pop business owners, Yelp’s sales tactics are coercive, unethical, and, possibly, illegal.”
Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0 (East Bay Express)
