I received this email yesterday, after discussing with a client that has had horrible experiences with YELP removing and hiding reviews for no apparent reason. Very frustrating to deal with them and you get no response.  I understand that the need to protect the integrity of reviews and not have businesses gaming the system, but when it is a real review and several of them to boot get removed for what appears to be no reason, as a business you find it very frustrating.

More info: The complaint was filed in Los Angeles by Miami-based law firm Beck & Lee and San Diego-based law firm The Weston Firm. The plaintiff is a Long Beach, California based veterinary hospital. The hospital claims that Yelp only offered to remove the negative review for $300.

Here’s the email I received regarding the lawsuit. We will be following this closely.

INDUSTRY PACE
interactive advertising insight
https://www.industrypace.com
February 25th, 2010

Yelp = Extortion Racket?
https://industrypace.com/frontpage/2010/2/25/yelp-extortion-racket.html

If you didn’t know, Yelp is being sued by two separate law firms claiming that their business is extortion. According to the complaint, one example is a veterinary hospital who claims that they contacted by a Yelp sales person to have negative reviewed removed, if they paid a few hundred dollars. This is similar to claims brought by EastBayExpress.com about a year ago, that claimed that this was part of their business model – selling positive reviews for a few hundred dollars or removing negative ones for the same.

https://industrypace.com/frontpage/2010/2/25/yelp-extortion-racket.html

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After reading and hearing first hand from users and business, it sounds like yelp needs to rethink the way works and treats businesses.  My recommendation is that a business have a yelp page, but not really focus on it, instead focus on reviews on Google and Facebook.  Now also focus on twitter as reviews are being aggregated by sites, including CitySearch.