
Yelp Reviews Brew Fight Over Free Speech, Fairness - rajbala
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303847804579477633444768964
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nlh
The fundamental problem I have with Yelp is that it's full of opinions, not
reviews, and people are allowed to post a star rating essentially in a vacuum,
which then gets averaged against other star ratings to form a ranking. "The
food was great but the waiter didn't fold my napkin properly - 1 star."

There's a reason newspapers hire professional food critics to write about
restaurants and film critics to write about movies. It takes training, skill,
and insight to write well-written reviews. Most people who write Yelp reviews
are perfectly entitled to share their opinion, but not a professional review.

I remember a while ago reading the Yelp reviews of a nightclub in NYC...two
different reviews told two very different stories:

"Oh this place is the best. My girlfriends and I showed up, they walked us
right in and everyone was buying us drinks all night. So fun! 5 stars"

"This place is terrible. The bouncer made me and my guy friends wait on line
for an hour and then charged us $50 each to go in. The drinks were overpriced.
1 star."

So according to Yelp, that place would be ranked 3 stars and I'd essentially
know nothing about it.

The other major issue I have is that in almost all non-restaurant business,
there is a hugely negative bias. Who goes and posts a positive review after a
good experience at the local dry cleaner? Nobody. But if they're rude or lose
a shirt, Yelp's going to hear about it.

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geekam
This happened to me last year. I went to a dentist near by where I moved. The
dentist and her assistant were both highly incompetent. Her assistant for
example, could not understand a single word. When I demanded my X-rays, so
that I can go and get a second opinion, I was refused at first and then told
that it will cost $25.

So, I went to Yelp and put a review about them. To my surprise, I received a
call from them asking to remove the review or I'll face lawsuit. I deleted the
review.

To be honest, the language I had used was not bad in any way and all I did was
describe my ordeal with an incompetent doctor.

~~~
bmelton
Pretty sure you weren't under any obligation to remove the review, so long as
it was honest, but you should have offered to at least trade the deletion for
a copy of your X-rays.

~~~
bagels
This topic has come up before. Some dentists/doctors have you sign an
agreement not to write a negative review. Even without that, this does not
stop them from suing someone, regardless of merit, which would require time
and expense.

Also, offering to trade for removing the review is extortion.

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nirkalimi
I don't really see the purpose of Yelp if reviews can not be 'raw' and
'uncensored'. The reason we all use yelp is because we won't get some
boilerplate testimonial- rather we will get the gritty details whether good or
bad.

I can see the effects its having on some businesses. My suggestion to those
businesses: focus on good customer service

~~~
rurounijones
Good Customer service means bugger all when negative reviews are being posted
by people who are not customers in an attempt to sabotage the business. (Like
competitors as suspected by the company in the article)

~~~
bmelton
Like this guy[1], who posted a sign on the window of his restaurant calling
concealed carry holders 'douchebags'. Overnight, he went from a 3.5 star
rating to a 1 star rating, with many of the reviewers referencing the sign,
and others fabricating (I assume at least) that they saw roaches, fingernails
in the food, that sort of thing.

The owner has since, it seems, deleted his restaurant's Yelp profile
altogether, undoubtedly because no Yelp presence is likely better than tens of
thousands of 1-star reviews.

[http://twitchy.com/2014/03/18/backstreets-backlash-sc-
bars-s...](http://twitchy.com/2014/03/18/backstreets-backlash-sc-bars-
sneering-message-for-gun-owners-sparks-disgust-sign-suggestions-pics/)

~~~
woof
"Overnight, he went from a 3.5 star rating to a 1 star rating"

QED

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exue
What I really want to know is, if the conspiracy about Yelp taking down
reviews based on whether you pay for its premium services. I imagine this is
most of the fight with FTC complaints. I've seen so many accusations, but no
actual proof of a page losing its reviews, or even a recorded phone call with
a rep (legal in most states, one of the exceptions being CA), just stories. I
believe most negative reviews are legit and many businesses that complain
about getting them are in denial.

Aside about reviews: Everyone loves to hate on how Yelp is biased and reviewed
by idiots, but for me it's been better than the alternatives, and the star
ratings generally reflect quality (especially for places with 100+ reviews). I
usually don't have the same tastes as professional critics, since they often
have a far higher price range and pay attention to the professionality of a
restaurant, and have their own biases away from the "plebeian" tastes. The
sample size of a lot of Yelpers is usually pretty effective in finding good
food. ZAGAT et al often also don't review small tea shops, food trucks, etc.

~~~
sizzle
I have one data point against yelp: I created a website for a small business
and they asked me about yelp's services after getting a call since they were
not technologically inclined (nice elder couple).

I told them it was not necessary for the success of their website, that the
decision was up to them and they should not feel rushed into signing up for
extra advertising since the site was just launched. I suggested they wait it
out and see how much traffic they received.

They politely declined Yelp's services, and over the period of a month I saw a
decline in their yelp ratings due to questionable reviews over very
superficial stuff not indicative of overall service quality.

Idunno what to believe, but a couple colleagues know people with similar
experiences. If Yelp is in the wrong here, I sincerely hope they are exposed
and get the negative publicity they deserve.

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jw2013
A system with comments attached with no poster 'real' identity pretty much
warrants the dilemma yelp is facing now. What about a (food critics, etc.)
system where all the comments come from your facebook friends? Would that
significantly reduce the inaccurate info the user will see? People can still
register fake accounts to make unfair comments but the stores do not need to
worry because it is likely their potential customer will not make friends with
these 'fake people/account'. And the one makes comment will be much more
accurate because all of their friends can see his/her comment, so his/her
comments have many social implications so most people will not purposely write
some unfair comment.

~~~
hamai
Yeah, you usually don't go asking strangers for a good dentist, you ask
friends, or maybe their friends. That's the whole point of recommendations.

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primitivesuave
This will set a dangerous precedent - if companies that get negative reviews
could sue the reviewers for defamation, any business with enough money can
strong-arm negative reviewers off their Yelp page (or really any other online
reviews site) by threatening them with a defamation lawsuit. Even if the
lawsuit is fraudulent, most people wouldn't have the resources or willpower to
fight it, as it is much faster to just delete their negative review.

~~~
faster
As the article says, "Customers have the right to their opinions without being
harassed and intimidated," but what about people who are not customers? How
can a user of Yelp know whether or not the review is legitimate and not a
competitor or disgruntled employee? And how can we know that the positive
reviews weren't posted by the owner or his friends and family? Or paid shills?

All of those non-customer reviews skew the opinions that we (partially) base
our decisions on.

So there have to be some checks to the anonymity. I think the barrier of going
to court is among the most reasonable ones we have right now.

~~~
calbear81
Yelp doesn't know if a review is truly legitimate or not but they employ
algorithms to detect potentially fake reviews and the ones they flag as
potentially fake are not factored into the score and hidden at the bottom of
the reviews panel. Common triggers include brand new accounts with a single
review and no other activity (friends, check-ins, etc.).

In the hotel industry, Tripadvisor has had to deal with the same issue with
fraudulent reviews so other competitors have tried to enter the space with the
concept of "verified reviews" only from folks who they know have stayed at the
hotel. This is similar to Amazon's verified reviews since they tie back to
purchase history.

~~~
faster
I agree that 'verifying' the reviewer is a great idea. How would you do that?
Amazon knows whether or not the reviewer bought the item; the Amazon ecosystem
is somewhat closed.

How do those Tripadvisor competitors know who has really stayed in the hotel?
How could Yelp do that without drying up the pool of reviewers too much?

~~~
trentmb
I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to verify a bad review... they hated
the experience enough to write about it, I can't imagine scanning a copy of a
receipt would be too much additional effort.

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sizzle
Thinking of a solution for Yelp's anonymous review system reminds me of how
Youtube approached their problem of terrible anonymous video comments by
forcing G+ integration.

Everyone bashed/bashes them for the move, but I have noticed a striking
contrast in the quality of comments now: largely on-topic discussions, people
calling out other posters to substantiate egregious claims etc

I would not mind if Yelp iterated around solutions involving public facing
identity.

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rtpg
Something I'm kind of wondering, how could one verify the claim "Yelp somehow
makes negative reviews come in after a business declined ads".

I hear it so much in this that I feel like it's something worth investigating
(without wanting to actually claim that I think that's what is happening).

~~~
bagels
The experiment could involve adding a few nonexistent businesses to Yelp, half
of which refuse to buy yelp ads, and half of which do buy them.

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jey
A "suburban carpet cleaner" that picks up rugs and cleans them can employ over
80 people, run 60 trucks, and does $12MM in revenue? Are there really that
many frequently soiled fancy rugs in a single suburban area?

~~~
dagw
If they have deals with hotels, school and offices, then easily.

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DannoHung
Yelp is pretty much no better than the Yellow pages at this point.

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colmvp
At this point, I can't even read food reviews on Yelp without wondering if
there are negative reviews missing. I just end up opting browsing photos for a
truer experience.

