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Restauranteurs Say Yelp Uses Extortion To Ply Ad Sales
Readers Mike Van Pelt and EricThegreen point out a story in the East Bay Express alleging that online restaurant review site Yelp is doing more than providing a nice interface for foodies to share their impressions of restaurants. Instead, says the article, representatives from the site have called restaurants in the Bay area to solicit advertising, but with an interesting twist: the ad sales reps let restaurant owners know that, if they buy advertising at around $300 a month, Yelp can "do something" about prominently displayed negative reviews of their restaurants. If the claims are true, it sure lowers my opinion of Yelp, which I'd thought of as one of the good guys (and a useful site). I wonder how many other online review sites might be doing something similar.
That's rather disappointing for a community based effort. My girlfriend and I use a similar site but it skimps on the advertisements: http://ottawafoodies.com/
Bored at work? Play Game!
If Yelp removes negative reviews for a fee, it seems to me that they have given up their common carrier status and have made themselves liable for errors in the reviews they leave up. Restaurants that receive negative reviews could sue Yelp for libel if they can demonstrate errors in the reviews.
Maybe you don't like to look at ads. Maybe you wants them to go away. Let's say you become a member. I would not be at all surprised if you found yourself +1 Insightful in the very near future. Think about it. Let me know.
A friend who manages a restaurant in Watertown MA asked me what Yelp was... She was contacted by someone claiming to be from Yelp with the same pitch.
I knew of Yelp, and used to trust the reviews. But I had already lost respect for them when they obviously sold my e-mail addy, despite claims of confidentiality and my opting out of their mailings.
What they're allegedly doing is scummy, but not extortion. Or rather, it's only extortion if Yelp itself is generating the negative reviews. Accepting cash to remove legitimate negative reviews is just slimy.
Their advertising side dominates their editorial side, just like the respectable old media guys. Web 2.0 made good, I think I'm tearing up...
In related news, Yelp has announced that it has reached a $300 cross-advertising relationship with Slashdot to "do something" about a prominently displayed news item.
Does Yelp also make sure that the restaurant's plate glass doesn't get broken by rocks thrown through it and that the head chef's knees don't get broken in an "accident" with a thug?
Or is that a possible future service offering consistent with their current portfolio of services?
Hmmm.
We all now know what the ... step is: Extortion.
I lost confidence in Yelp after I posted a negative review of an Italian bistro in Haddonfield, NJ (which I won't name to avoid giving them any free publicity) and it was removed after about a week. Over time other reviewers for the restaurant made references to their previous negative reviews being removed as well. My girlfriend and I had dinner at this place for Valentine's day last year and the experience was miserable. The food was bland and overpriced, and the kitchen manager was making very rude sexual comments about his dating life and experience with women. I wrote to the owner first explaining the problem and he responded with suggestions that I'm a prude, obviously don't know good food, would not be happy anywhere, and suggested that if I'd like to come back sometime (I live in PA), he'd be willing to settle this outside. So since I wasn't getting anywhere with that route, I posted both my and his emails into a yelp review. Gone a week later. I've watched the review section since then and have noticed several negative reviews go up and are then removed shortly after. Currently there are only two reviews up, with 3 and 5 stars. My only idea at this point is that the owner of the place (whose email address looks suspiciously like the word "douche") badgered Yelp into removing them.
Anyone else have this experience?
Founder, Americans Allied Against Alliteration
after RTFA I am not so sure what's going on is clearcut, so take this story with some salt.
Clearly the sales reps are 'shaking down' some restaurants, but I think it's more likely that they are trying to inflate their own numbers and don't have the power they pretend or are wording it in such a way that it seems they can do more than they can.
What you get is just the ability to choose one review to be 'front and center'. Otherwise all reviews are placed by an algorithm. So a sales rep says 'we could help with that negative review' but what they mean is 'because you get to place one featured positive one at the top'
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
How is this article 6 pages long? I cannot help but snicker reading the first paragraph. I get the image of a restaurant owner cringing every time the phone rings, dreading the voice of Henchman Number 24 on the other end.
"Would you like to purchase advertising on our site? We can rearrange the order of your ratings. The Monarch Mobile will be right over with the paperwork."
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
I live in Texarkana AR. I eat mostly in Texarkana, TX. The Bowie County has this nice report http://www.txkusa.org/health/Food-Report.pdf
It lists: Establishment, Address, Date of Inspection, Type of Inspection, and Score. My wife and I check it every time we consider trying something new. We first look 'em up. If they don't have an A; we don't eat there.
I just wish Miller County had the same thing. Heck, it would be nice if there was an easy federal health website that it was trivial to search for this info. Heck, it would be nice to have those GPS units be able to poll for that info when you are "out of town." Just so you are sure to pick a clean place to eat.
...should not surprise a single person that understands business
And people wonder why the economy's in the toilet.
Free Martian Whores!
Absolutely true. I personally know a restaurant owner in San Francisco that complains about these suggestive calls.
Yelp = crap.
Facebook is the new AOL
Please name names.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Well, yes and no.
1. That some businesses would want to slander (or libel) the competition, yeah, that probably goes all the way back to the dawn of time. Which is why most countries have various numbers of laws to contain the phenomenon.
2. There's still something distasteful about being the guy who tries to cash in on that with a "if you don't pay 300 a month, we'll show bad reviews of you at the top." That's no longer even about competition, it's a plain old protection racket. It's not just a betrayal of the public's trust, it's really trying to blackmail someone with a threat to their public image and reputation.
We're in an age where someone's reputation is probably the most important asset of their business. I wouldn't be surprised if some restaurants would lose less money if you threw a molotov through their windows, than if you convince half the town to not even give them a try. Doubly so since you can insure agains the former, but there's no insurance I know of against just not getting customers. So basically I see no fundamental moral difference between, basically:
- "Nice restaurant you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. It's a rough neighbourhood, you know? Lots of evil people out there. Some vandals could tear the place down one night. But we're nice people. If you pay us 300$ a month for our efforts, we could keep an eye out that it doesn't happen."
- "Nice reputation your restaurant has. It would be a shame if anything happened to it. It's a tough world, you know? Lots of evil people out there. Some bastards could plaster the reviews page with really nasty stuff. But we're nice people. If you pay us 300$ a month for our efforts, we could keep an eye out that it doesn't happen."
Both essentially threaten you with a bigger loss unless you pay the protection fee.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This better fits the description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
And, considering that it is/was practiced by our pals in the Big Music Industry . . . doesn't make it any more palatable.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The LA Times had this "scoop" a week ago. This is old news!
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus11-2009feb11,0,6849007.column
The basic elements of common carrier status are:
(1) A business operating under a license issued by the government;
(2) The business offers to provide non-discriminatory service to the public; and
(3) The service provided is considered a "public convenience and necessity".
According to Wikipedia (my Black's is at home):
"A common carrier must further demonstrate to the regulator that it is "fit, willing and able" to provide those services for which it is granted authority. Common carriers typically transport persons or goods according to defined and published routes, time schedules and rate tables upon the approval of regulators."
Common carrier is also often used in the telecom sector to describe a similar service, whereby the cell phone company (for example) offers you access to the publicly owned radio spectrum according to a rate schedule.
In short -- nothing about Yelp relates in any way to common carrier status.
Please don't use technical terms you don't understand in posts without doing some research first. I don't go around flining technical jargon about compiling techniques, why do people insist on trying to use (or should I say misuse) tecnical legal terms???
When your experience at a store, restaurant, or other service is bad enough to cause you to explicitly avoid them, telling the owner lets them know that there's a problem. They might have been unaware that their employees were rude, or that service was poor, or that the food is uncompelling or overpriced. This allows them to know WHY they're losing customers, rather than wondering why they continue to do poorly. This could conceivably lead to the restaurant's service/food/attitude improving, thereby improving the experience of all future customers (and potentially yourself, if you ever go back).
Sure, sometimes the owner is a jerk, and already endorses the establishment's bad behavior. You're then just informing him that you are no longer part of his customer demographic; the chance of restaurant improvement is much much smaller in this case, and I can understand the "why bother?" perspective in this case.
If you're EVER unhappy about an experience anywhere, it's often fruitful (or at least cathartic ;)) to tell the owner that you had a poor experience. Even if it's something like, "We love your restaurant, but service was especially poor this past Friday night." Being polite is bound to be morefruitful than telling them off, as in almost all communications, of course.
Yelp directly competes with East Bay Express for restaurant reviews, and their "Best of" awards, so no surprise that the Express would run a Hit piece against Yelp. Moreover, the Express has also had controversies of its own in how it does reader "rankings" of local restaurants. And for those of us trying to improve local public transit, the author of this EB-Express article is very well known for her slanted and inaccurate hit pieces against AC Transit (the local bus service).