Yelp accused of extortion (UPDATED)

Matt Bowman · February 24, 2010 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/e06

Class action lawsuit claims the site demands payments in exchange for removing negative reviews

 The line between extortion and aggressive sales tactics can get pretty fuzzy for a startup on the verge of making or breaking it. A new lawsuit alleges that Yelp crossed the line. The suit, filed in a Los Angeles Federal Court, states that the popular local business review site “runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of ‘advertising contracts,’ in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website."

The plaintiff, a veterinary hospital in Long Beach, says it requested that Yelp remove negative comments about the business from its site. Yelp refused, then repeatedly contacted the hospital soliciting monthly payments of about $300 in exchange for hiding or deleting the review. A Yelp representative told TechCrunch “The allegations are demonstrably false, since many businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews.” That argument isn’t air tight, but the burden of proof is certainly on the hospital. (*See update below with more comments from Yelp.)

The “Yelp Class Action Website” refers repeatedly to an article published last year in the East Bay Express that suggest Yelp also manipulates the placement of reviews prior to sales calls and after the termination of advertising contracts to further pressure businesses to pay up. Yelp vehemently denied the accusations, providing their own analysis of the story's sources.

The suit comes just weeks after Yelp announced a $25 million series E round from private equity firm Elevation Partners, which planned to invest as much as $100 million over time.

We've reached out to Yelp and will update this post if we hear back.

 

Update 10:53 am 11/25: Yelp's vice president of communications Vince Sollitto called us back. Regarding the suit he said, "Yelp provides a valuable service to millions of consumers and business precisely because of its trusted content. Yelp does not allow advertisers control over reviews on their page or to remove negative reviews and the allegations in the suit are demonstrably false. As a quick look at any of our thousands of advertisers will show." 

Sollitto did say advertisers can purchase an ad to place at the top of the page, highlighting a positive review, and that such an ad is clearly marked as an advertisment. As for advertisers who complain about bad reviews, he said, "Yelp treats the request for review of a review equally for advertisers and non advertisers alike."

With regards to the insinuation in the East Bay Express article that Yelp manipulates the placement of reviews prior to sales calls and after the termination of advertising contracts to further pressure businesses to pay up, Sollito insists, "Not true. Completely not true. The placement, display and order of reviews on a business webpage is completely automated by an algorithm that weighs a multitude of factors, including recency, credibility of the review and also votes of the community. [...] that process is entirely automated, it's not done manually in any way and it certainly isn’t modified or changed based on a businesses willingness to pay for advertising or not."

He also said that the use of a dynamic algorithm to keep the reviews on a page fresh could lead to the misperception on the part of some businesses that those reviews would be manipulated rather than automated.

Support VatorNews by Donating

Read more from our "Trends and news" series

More episodes

Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Yelp

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great (and not so great) in your world. You already know that asking friends is the best way to find restaurants, dentists, hairstylists, and anything local. Yelp makes it fast and easy by collecting and organizing your friends' recommendations in one convenient place.

Yelp is...

...the ultimate city guide that taps into the community's voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything from martinis to mechanics.

...just real people, writing real reviews, and that's the real deal.

...a fun and engaging place for passionate and opinionated influencers to share the experiences they've had with local businesses and services.

...the definitive local guide in the San Francisco Bay Area and a force to be reckoned with in Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle. But really, we're everywhere. From Austin to Madison and everywhere in between, reviews are coming in from all over the country!

...word of mouth marketing - amplified. Savvy local marketers now have a great channel to effectively target local consumers.

Since July 2004, co-founders Jeremy Stoppelman (CEO) and Russel Simmons (CTO) and their Yelp crew have been striving to make life better for people who love to patronize great local businesses. Discovering accurate information on local establishments has never been this entertaining. Writing reviews has never been this fun, easy and addictive!