

Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme? - kolosy
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/02/26/real-people-real-reviews-real-extortion-scheme/

======
rmorrison
There is definitely room in the market for a new Yelp, one that is trusted and
won't erase bad reviews. I'd like to see something where reviews decay over
time though, similar to the HN frontpage. Once a review is "off the frontpage"
long enough, it shouldn't be publicly accessible anymore. This would allow
small businesses to regain their online reputation after a bad period.

Anyway, too bad for Yelp that there isn't somebody in the gov't they could pay
$300/month to make this bad lawsuit go away...

~~~
bugs
Reviews aren't meant to decay quickly, sure a restaurant could improve over
time but many do not and creating online accounts or hiring people for fake
reviews is most likely easier and cheaper.

~~~
rmorrison
I'm not saying that they need to decay quickly, just that there should be some
notion of decay on reviews. Reviews from last year are not as important as
those from last week, especially for a food establishment. You're right
though, there does have to be protections in place against gaming too.

The problem is though, that every company will get some 1-star reviews, and
there has to be some mechanism for them to get erased (eventually). This
mechanism should be open, clear, and well known, not $300/month to the rating
company. Otherwise, once a long-running, good company gets some critical mass
of negative/crazy customers leaving 1-star reviews, they'd have to close or
rename or something in order to get back that unfairly lost traffic.

------
brk
I've deleted the Yelp app from my iPhone. It seemed like a good idea early on,
but I don't feel that I can trust the results any more, and it's not worth the
trouble.

It's a bummer because I travel a lot for work, so it was nice to be able to
find local businesses.

~~~
tptacek
It's really too bad Google didn't buy them; I don't fundamentally trust Google
that much more, but I do trust that Google doesn't care more about the pennies
it would get from hard-selling small business than it does about the avalanche
of cash it gets selling advertising to everyone.

There is, however, a special place in hell reserved for the people whose
business model revolves around squeezing mom and pop businesses. It is an
endless Wal Mart, stretching as far as the eye can see, inhabited by zombie
greeters armed with 24-can value packs of flaming caustic Dow distinfectant
spray.

~~~
jrockway
_There is, however, a special place in hell reserved for the people whose
business model revolves around squeezing mom and pop businesses._

I don't know why mom-and-pop businesses should get a free pass on everything.
They seem to think that because running a small business is not particularly
profitable, that they shouldn't have to pay taxes, they shouldn't have to
provide customer service, they shouldn't have reasonable hours, and that I
should worship them for providing me with such a valuable service.

I like local businesses, but it was nice to see the last recession kill some
of the crappy ones off.

(The ones I frequent that have good ratings on Yelp are the ones that deserve
good ratings. The people working there tend to be super-nice, and that makes
people want to rate them highly. The places with low ratings deserve the low
ratings.)

~~~
tptacek
They don't deserve a free pass on anything. They do deserve not to be bullied
by businesses with massively more resources in ways that don't improve market
efficiency.

I have no problem with Wal Mart killing off neighborhood True Value hardware
stores; that has a demonstrable benefit (though perhaps not one I'd choose)
for consumers.

I have a clear problem with a parasitic business extracting cash from a
neighborhood cafe. I don't benefit from that at all; in fact, nobody does
except for the parasite.

~~~
jrockway
The business doesn't lose anything by not playing Yelp's game. You would still
go to the cafe if it had a few bad reviews on Yelp, and so would I. (Then
again, I read the content of reviews rather than the arbitrary star rating. If
someone says "1 star, I ordered a salad and hated it because I hate
vegetables" then I am not going to think negatively of the business that has
this review attached. I am going to think, "damn people are dumb".)

~~~
axod
I was looking for dedicated server hosting the other day, and that market is
just ridiculously full of bad, stupid reviews.

"This dedicated server provider is terrible! They wouldn't even help me with a
mysql problem" etc.

I'm sure half the hosting co reviews are done by competitors, and the other
half are done by idiots who don't understand anything. And of course all the
satisfied customers can't be bothered to write reviews.

It's always going to be best to get a personal recommendation than trusting
reviews on the internet, for anything.

~~~
tokenadult
_It's always going to be best to get a personal recommendation than trusting
reviews on the internet, for anything._

This is precisely why many people expect social networks to play a larger and
larger role in commerce.

~~~
axod
The problem with that is, social network 'friends' are usually pretty
meaningless. They're certainly not usually people I'd trust to recommend
anything.

------
ilovecomputers
Yelp's response: [http://officialblog.yelp.com/2010/02/lady-justice-needs-a-
la...](http://officialblog.yelp.com/2010/02/lady-justice-needs-a-lawsuit-
filter.html)

------
newhouseb
<http://www.yelp.com/myths>

~~~
SourPatch
How long ago was that put up?

~~~
newhouseb
oh i dunno, a year ago probably?

------
kolosy
(ot) any particular reason the title of this was changed?

~~~
allenbrunson
your original title was editorializing. it's not cool for the submitter to
decide how people should feel about an article.

~~~
kolosy
fair enough.

