The Modern Protection Racket
By Nick Roumel
“Yelp” is two things. It is a global, publicly-traded corporation worth about a billion dollars, which features on line reviews about local businesses. The lower-case version is a noun, defined in the dictionary as “A short sharp bark or cry.” This could be the sound a restaurant owner makes, after the corporate Yelp mob punishes him for not advertising on their site.
Yelp has been hounded by accusations from business owners that if they choose to not advertise on Yelp’s web site, that they will have five star reviews removed and face other consequences. The owner of a furniture-restoration business in San Francisco said several five-star ratings disappeared from his Yelp page two days after he refused to buy ads. A San Francisco dentist said a Yelp sales representative offered her “lots of benefits” for advertising, then removed nine five-star ratings from her page a few days later - ratings that were restored after she signed an advertising contract. [sfgate.com]
But after these business owners sued, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out their proposed class action lawsuit. In fact, the court said that even if their claims were true, that Yelp had a right to engage in what Judge Marsha Berzon called “hard bargaining.”
Yelp denies the claims, and points out that it has installed aggressive software designed to filter out fake reviews (such as positive ones from the owners’ children, or negative ones from competitors). Despite that, a Harvard professor’s 2014 study found that as many as 20% of all Yelp reviews were fake. In fact, the New York Attorney General uncovered businesses that were hiring “freelance writers from as far away as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe for $1 to $10 per review.” [cbsnews.com]
Where suits against Yelp are unsuccessful, some disgruntled business owners have tried to sue negative reviewers directly, for claims such as defamation. Because the “Community Decency Act” of 1996 grants broad immunity to web site hosts for merely posting allegedly defamatory content, litigants instead try to force courts to order Yelp to identify the usually anonymous online reviewers, so they can seek remedies against them. Yelp routinely fights these subpoenas, arguing that the First Amendment protects their users. However, they recently lost a key case in Virginia in this regard, which is on appeal.
One alternative to litigation is what one ingenious San Francisco-area restaurant did. The owners of “Botto Bistro,” who alleged that they were “blackmailed” by Yelp to buy advertising, have instead embraced the idea of terrible reviews. In fact, they have promised discounts to anyone giving them a 1-star review on Yelp, and customers have obliged in droves, saying such things as “I have been here at least 20 times and it is still terrible! They keep bothering us when we are ready to order!” Other wags mock-complain that they can’t get massages, or free food, or to order Mexican meals in this Italian restaurant. Botto Bistro proudly boasts, “People hate us on Yelp!” One owner said, “I want to be the worst restaurant there is in the Bay Area. I think this is the best business move I have made in years.” [sfgate.com]
Personally, my only experience with Yelp was when they refused to post a negative review I made of a local restaurant, claiming with a canned response that it fell “outside their content guidelines.” Perhaps it was a coincidence that restaurant was a big Yelp advertiser. I have since chosen to do all my online reviews on “Trip Advisor,” which I find to be an extremely valuable travel tool replete with detailed and useful reviews. A quick scan of what people are saying about a restaurant, for example, reveals common themes that illuminate the “flavor” of a place and help me decide whether to go there. I have yet to find an experience that wasn’t generally in line with the reviews on Trip Advisor.
That is not to denigrate Yelp. On the contrary, since I note that our firm is listed on Yelp as a local business, please let me conclude by saying that Yelp may well be the finest website on the planet. How’s that for a short, sharp bark or cry?
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