
Judge: There’s no proof Yelp manipulates reviews - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/judge-theres-no-proof-yelp-manipulates-reviews/
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jakewalker
The standards for adequately pleading a securities fraud lawsuit -- which this
was -- are incredibly high, and the plaintiff has to meet that standard
without access to any discovery from the Defendant (here, Yelp). Which is all
a way of saying that it is extremely difficult to read too much into the
dismissal of a securities fraud lawsuit.

The judge in this case was basically concluding that plaintiff -- a Yelp
investor -- could not adequately allege in his complaint that Yelp or its
executives made a false statement of material fact in connection with the sale
of a security. And plaintiff had an extremely high burden to survive such a
motion to dismiss because of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Securities_Litigation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Securities_Litigation_Reform_Act)).

So, in short, there is very little that one can conclude about Yelp's actual
practices (for better or for worse) from learning that a securities lawsuit
like this was dismissed.

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kin
Yelp as a company has no way of knowing what shady practices their sales
people use to try and get an ad sale. I've experienced first hand being the
point of communication for my parents' small business. As soon as I declined a
$300/month offer, my parents' business (which had only 2 5 star reviews)
suddenly received a 1 star review from some random person that didn't even fit
the store's clientele. Where did this review come from?

I understand the benefit Yelp provides to some excellent establishments but it
unjustly hurts so many along the way.

~~~
1024core
I've been hearing these stories too. But till date I've yet to find one (just
one!) piece of incontrovertible evidence that Yelp sales folk engage in
blackmail. Surely, after all these years, there must exist just ONE phone
recording or email??

~~~
xenihn
I'm convinced that there is an untold number of third parties/scammers cold-
calling listed business numbers falsely representing themselves as Yelp,
targeting owners who are not technologically savvy.

Unfortunately, Yelp's current model seems to encourage extortion at the hands
of these third parties, and is also incapable of punishing them.

What I think happens / Paraphrase of what I'd imagine a 3rd party call to be
like:

"Hi, this is Yelp. Pay us and we'll boost your rating/visibility and hide bad
reviews. If you don't pay, your Yelp ratings will suffer."

Then they just manipulate ratings and review visibility with fake accounts.
Add good reviews and hide bad ones if the owner paid, and add bad reviews and
hide good ones if they didn't.

(Also I'm aware that there are plenty of "legitimate" businesses that provide
this service and don't misrepresent themselves as Yelp itself)

~~~
tertius
And you should be convinced.

I'm a Google Trusted Photographer in Houston and I visit and talk with
businesses that get targeted every single day. I'm loosely affiliated with
Google and I have to make that clear. They get calls twice a day from "Google"
and "Yelp" about their pages and reviews. This is their #1 complaint when I
call them or walk in their door. Being local helps.

~~~
eridius
I've gotten a few prerecorded calls from "Google Local" about my business,
saying something about needing to verify details. I never really listen
though, because _I don 't have a business_ (they're calling my personal cell
phone). It's really quite strange.

~~~
tertius
Try having a listing on Google maps and see how many times you get called.

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anthonybsd
We've witnessed this manipulation first hand. My son used to go to the local
day care that had stellar reviews on Yelp - 4 or 5 stars with a single 3 star
review. I knew the vast majority of reviewers because they were parents whom
I've met through kids birthday parties and the like. Then one day Yelp called
the owner of the daycare asking her if she'd like to purchase some
advertising. She already had plenty of business so she politely declined. A
week later 20-something reviews went into "Not Recommended" category,
effectively becoming hidden. The only review that remained on the site for the
business was the single 3-star review. This is effectively extortion. In other
words yelp won't fabricate reviews, it'll just selectively filter reviews if
you don't pay them to pain a worse picture of your business.

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stingrae
I have a small anecdotal experience with yelp manipulations. In my case as a
user trying to search for a restaurants reviews by the exact name of the
place. The search resulted in a competing restaurant blocks away of the same
ethnicity that happens to pay for yelp advertising. This is pretty poor
practice. The only way to find the restaurant I was actually looking for was
with the map view.

If the excuse is poor search quality, it seems too convenient.

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tacos
Literally every local small business I know reports some type of shenanigans
with Yelp. Some of it is surely false-correlation by emotional shop owners.

But there is, at best, a critical mass of unethical salespeople, because I've
heard far too many reports of pressured selling.

Either way, they've got a really big problem. Big picture, it's hard to
imagine how a site like this can remain neutral or useful long-term. It's just
a playground for mischief on all sides, and eventually consumers will catch
on.

~~~
ahallock
What does a useful local business review site look like? Not being snarky--
genuinely interested to see if there's an opportunity here.

~~~
deepinsand
I think Yelp is missing proof of identity and proof of patronage. It was
created before social media took off, and before you could reliably know if
someone had been somewhere.

I don't know if you need both, but proof of patronage alone might not be
enough to trust a review (See Amazon verified purchases).

~~~
scarmig
Aren't Yelp "Check-ins" factored into the trustworthiness rating of a review,
or whatever it's called?

That's kind of an ersatz proof of patronage.

~~~
etjossem
Maybe. It still wouldn't be foolproof - after all, Yelp Check-ins are powered
by an API that trusts the coordinates it receives.

It might be possible to craft a request for that API. And even using a
legitimate copy of the Yelp app to make requests, a jailbroken iPhone can
change its coordinates to whatever you want. An Android doesn't even need that
- just set it to developer mode and you're ready to fake check-ins all day.

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orthoganol
Yelp is all but meaningless in San Francisco, probably its most popular city.
Really average or even crappy cafes, salons, restaurants have greater than or
equal 4 star ratings... it's a little baffling. I presume from the stories you
hear that it's because the businesses pay.

~~~
landonshoop
I think it is a result of the five star rating system -- a vast majority of
the businesses fall between a 4 and a 4.5 star rating. Perhaps a binary rating
system is a better forcing mechanism to determine quality?

But since we're stuck with the five star system...here is how I leverage Yelp
review data when it comes to selecting a small business to patronize:

1\. Normalize for the true Yelp rating scale of 4 - 4.5 stars. Filter out
anything below a 4 star rating. If a small business is unable achieve 4 stars
on Yelp, then something must be really wrong.

2\. Quantity of reviews is important. For starters, you need a significant
sample size of review data for the star rating to be meaningful. Further on
the review quantity front: massive review numbers relative to other similar
businesses in that given city is a good signal of popularity (though not
necessarily quality).

3\. You need to supplement your Yelp findings from points 1 and 2 with other
sources, ideally critical reviews (e.g. Eater, Serious Eats, Time Out, NY
Times, Chicago Mag, etc).

4\. The content of individual Yelp reviews should be taken with a grain of
salt. Your individual priorities and tastes might be radically different so
there is limited value in an individual's rating. I've come across some truly
great restaurants with 1-star reviews because the reviewer tried to dine at
the restaurant on a Monday...when it was closed.

~~~
Goronmon
_Normalize for the true Yelp rating scale of 4 - 4.5 stars. Filter out
anything below a 4 star rating. If a small business is unable achieve 4 stars
on Yelp, then something must be really wrong._

My experience is that higher star ratings on Yelp equate mainly to
presentation over taste and that higher prices tend to mean a better rating
(Out of a few average Chinese food places, the higher priced one will be rated
the highest).

~~~
ghaff
>higher prices tend to mean a better rating

If you assume an efficient market, they presumably wouldn't be able to charge
a higher price if people didn't like them better. Of course, the average rater
may care more about presentation than you do. A lot of people do go to
restaurants more for the "experience" than for the food.

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TACIXAT
My Yelp story: I was a pretty active user. I enjoyed writing funny reviews of
crappy places. One day I was trying to look something up and got a pop-over to
confirm my account info. I clicked through and went on with my day. A few
weeks later I received notice that my account was deleted. I contacted them
and was informed I was too young to use the site and there was no chance of
account recovery (I was a few years over 18 at the time). All of my reviews
were gone. Emailed them, no chance of getting those back, though I was welcome
to create a new account.

So, they managed to disappear all the reviews I left. They did it on a
technicality and it was well within their terms of service. However, I view
this as vote manipulation. They're pushing really hard now to say they don't
do that. They burned me once though and now I actively avoid the service.

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CyberDildonics
Yelp talks about not changing reviews or deleting bad reviews.

What obviously DOES happen is that they sort reviews differently and make the
bad ones hard to find.

Then they come out and say 'we don't delete reviews, we don't manipulate them'
but it's easy to find companies that have reviews sorted so that the negative
ones are buried and on a completely separate page from the main reviews.

~~~
krisdol
What you need is evidence to show that the way this affects companies differs
based on whether the company is paying Yelp for advertising. There are so many
reasons why either positive OR negative reviews may be filtered. I've seen
false review vote-brigades on a business because someone from the business
made offensive remarks about palestine and the military.

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Steko
Used to love yelp but not letting me use the site on mobile browser is an
absolute deal-killer. Apple should disapprove any app where the websites
functionality is intentionally broken on iOS in order to force users into the
app.

~~~
55555
pinterest too. hate this

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codecamper
maybe it's just a way to reduce the amount of work that needs to be done. What
the heck is wrong with downloading an app?

~~~
function_seven
I don't have the space on my phone for every website that wants to be an app.
The great thing about the WWW is that information can be accessed without
having to install a special program for each provider. The web browser is
plenty capable of handling Yelp's needs.

It might be to reduce the amount of work, but I still don't like it, and would
rather they let me use my already-existing web browser to access their web
site.

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hackaflocka
I think the legal definition of "manipulation" might differ from the "ethical"
definition. What I think has happened here is that the court didn't find any
"illegal manipulation." The question of "unethical manipulation" may still be
up in the air. The problem for Yelp is that it seems to serve as a
psychological outlet for a large number of people. They're angry about
something, it builds up, and they then take immense satisfaction in channeling
it into a business review.

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free2rhyme214
Yelp doesn't manipulate reviews, their sales people tell you they'll remove
bad reviews if you pay them money.

It's easy to behave this way when you're a monopoly.

~~~
oldmanjay
What are they a monopoly in, millenial-targeted web reviews for specific
industries?

"Monopoly" is not synonymous with "successful."

~~~
free2rhyme214
They're a monopoly in local reviews, a modern day Yellow Pages.

They had $377mm in 2014 revenue. Their biggest competitor is Angie's List
who's now facing competition from Thumbtack.

