
Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google - gaplus
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/technology/yelp-google-european-union-antitrust.html
======
mrunkel
I find all this hand wringing over Google to be so tiring. Google is doing
what is best for it's customers. Be that advertisers and/or searchers.

If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance.

Last I checked, nobody is forced to use google to search for things, nobody if
forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome.

I'm not a laissez-faire capitalist by any means, but I don't see that Google
has an unfair monopoly. They have achieved their dominance because their
services are viewed as "best" by the majority of folks out there.

Nobody complains when Google suddenly starts delivering more customers to
their web properties, only if traffic suddenly dies out.

~~~
mdasen
> If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance.

That's precisely the issue. It can be illegal to use your market dominance in
one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas.
Microsoft had the best operating system and a browser that they wanted people
to use. People preferred Netscape, but Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill
off Netscape.

It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the
dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Google has
dominance in search, but using that to kill off competitors for their lesser-
liked products isn't fair.

> They have achieved their dominance because their services are viewed as
> "best" by the majority of folks out there.

Their search service is viewed as "best" my most, but that doesn't mean their
reviews service is. That's what's at issue. Being the best at one thing
shouldn't allow you to stifle people that are better at another thing. That is
certainly not best for consumers.

If Google were 20% of search traffic, they could do many things because
there's no dominance at issue. Since Google is the vast majority of search
traffic, they can effectively eliminate most competitors. Starting a reviews
site? Your listings will fall below our own regardless of their merit.
Starting a videos site, YouTube alternatives will always be shown first even
if it's not what the user is looking for.

YouTube should be popular on its own merit, not based on Google using its
search dominance to choke competitors. Google's reviews should be popular on
their own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to kill off
Yelp.

I do want to clarify that I'm not saying that Google is guilty of doing this,
but that when you get to a certain market dominance, you can kill off
competitors that are better than you by starving them rather than by being
better than them. It's important that third-parties can compete with Google's
non-search services without having Google's search service unreasonably favor
Google's non-search services.

~~~
notatoad
>It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to
reinforce or create market dominance in other areas

I think it's a stretch to say that searching for HVAC business listings and
searching for HVAC business reviews are really different markets. If google
had an HVAC subsidiary and they suppressed all search results and ads for
competing HVAC companies, that would be abusing their dominant position in the
search market to create dominance in another market. But is it really
monopolistic behaviour to use their web search dominance to succeed in a
slightly more specific sector of the web search market? You can use google to
find reviews of products and services. They advertise alongside those search
results. That is their core business. Yelp is a straight-up competitor.
"Google is better than us in the market we compete in" isn't a valid anti-
trust complaint.

~~~
simion314
I think the point here is that Google is not returning the best results but
pushing it's own other services on top of the list even if in this case other
review services are better.

~~~
notatoad
It's displaying ads above the search results. That's what google does. It's
their whole business. It's not pushing their own review services over yelp,
it's advertising alongside search results.

~~~
simion314
What about when they put a Chrome ad even if you are not searching for
replacing your browser? So the main point with the EU antitrust is not about
yelp but about Google putting it's own stuff on top , not about the ads.

~~~
Canning
This one should stand out to most people so it's no surprise to me that EU
took note as well.

------
redm
"Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet
companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an
outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time."

That sums it up for Yelp and many others, myself included. Combine that
reality with the black box that Google is, in many ways, and you have an
inaccessible behemoth who's decisions decide the fate of many.

Googles combination of Search, Browser, and Advertising dominance gives it a
unique position of power. Then there are secondary markets like Android that
just buttress their position.

I see the fight raging about net neutrality and keep thinking that Google
neutrality is just as important. It affects people in even more meaningful
ways, determining where they go and what they see on the Internet.

~~~
putlake
I agree. As a web publisher who depends on advertising for revenue and Google
for traffic, things are getting more and more difficult. Google providing
answers in the search box robs legitimate publishers of traffic. But the
industry is so fragmented that a concerted legal action against Google is not
possible.

Since this is HN, I expect people are going to start chanting "Die you ad
supported publishers or find a new business model. We love Google because it's
great for the users to read the answer on Google and not have to visit your ad
laden site". I understand this sentiment but don't agree with it. Users love
anything that's free. That does not mean Google can steal it and give it to
them.

The implicit contract between publishers and Google is that publishers let
Google crawl and index their content. In return, Google includes the publisher
in their search results so users can find the information they are looking for
and publishers get traffic. Outright copying of this information is stealing
because it robs publishers of their revenue stream.

~~~
AznHisoka
OK, so now that implicit contract changed and says Google can show that
information above the organic search results. Given this, publishers do have a
choice of blocking Google in their robots.txt.

this is an implicit agreement (not explicit). the agreement changed.
publishers still have a chance to respond... dont like it? block google! (its
just 1 line in robots.txt) go rely on word of mouth, bing, ads and emailing to
get traffic!

dont want to do that? oh i see... well that means you voluntarily agree to the
agreement and have no right to complain.

~~~
falsedan
> _you voluntarily agree to the agreement and have no right to complain_

See, that sounds exactly like the kind of thing a standover merchant would
say: feel free not to pay the protection fees, sure would be a shame if
something would happen to your organic search traffic…

------
kailuowang
I found that Yelp's reviews very unreliable. My business owner friends told me
that they are constantly harassed by yelp's sales representatives to buy the
right to "clean up" their reviews. I don't see how yelp can continue trash
their brand like this and blaming Google for their low performance.

~~~
bhldr
Cleaning up reviews is actually not a Yelp feature. Paid or unpaid.

~~~
JCzynski
False. Squelching reviews that are "not relevant" or otherwise flagged, making
them not show up unless the list of reviews is expanded to include the
described-as-low-quality reviews, and IIRC not being included in the star-
rating calculation, is SOP at Yelp.

It's done algorithmically by default, but there are people whose job it is to
track places where the algorithms have gone wrong, and while ostensibly their
latitude for independent decision is narrow it's actually pretty broad. Also
that set of decisions is kept in a separate DB most programmers can't view or
interact with, but which the customer support team could easily point the
flaggers to.

Source: Worked there briefly.

------
valuearb
Summary: a scummy company like Yelp pays to influence regulators in order to
force one of their competitors to change their product to be less consumer
friendly and to better feature Yelp.

------
naskwo
2 cents here:

My background: I co-founded the largest online dating site in the Netherlands
(sold to Match) as well as the largest housing platform (15 years before
Airbnb :-). We leveraged the rise of Google to our advantage and the brands
are still #1 in the Netherlands.

===

Aside: Google raised the bar for the Internet. Heck, for the world. I think
their offering is orders of magnitude better than the Excite, Lycos and
AltaVista days, and the no-nonsense UI allows for a purer form if of
information consumption.

A day without Facebook is a productive day. A day without Google is a day
lost.

Where Google is like water to the Internet, Facebook is like a sugary
softdrink. Enticing, but unhealthy with no nutritional content.

===

Google is the de-facto search on the Internet. This is reflected in their
valuation, as well as the fact that to "google" something is now a verb
written in lowercase.

As a result, Google is the lens through which the world finds its information.

Being in this position also implies that Google should be regulated to block
advertisers (and Google) from using third party trademarks as keywords:

It has irked me for many years that Google can sell advertising to companies
for keywords that are trademarks this advertiser does not own. E.g. Adidas
showing up when searching for Nike. It's nothing short of extortion that I
would be forced to bid up bidding on _my own trademark_.

Here is Google's policy:
[https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en](https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/6118?hl=en)

It seems a trivial matter to me to query the USPTO and the EU database to make
sure that any AdWords show up _below_ the organic search results for the valid
trademark owner (as verified inside AdWords).

In this case, Yelp is a trademark, and Google's own product should show up
_below_ Yelp's trademark. Otherwise, I don't see how this could be interpreted
other than abuse of market monopoly.

------
sunstone
As a regular netizen I just don't trust Yelp. I'll use any other reputation
service before them.

------
jszymborski
Interestingly, the other firms cited in the article as taking up the Google
fight are Microsoft and Oracle, which both have had their antitrust issues.

This definitely looks like a case of "well, we got in trouble for this, so
they should get their come-upings too!".

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's always worth noting that today's underdog could be tomorrow's monopolist.
When any of these companies get on top, they'll do anything to stay that way.

So like, today I would consider Microsoft an ally against the current monopoly
party, but I have no doubt that Microsoft would return to their old ways if
they were on top again.

------
bitmapbrother
It doesn't get much more despicable than Yelp. They've been threatening and
extorting small businesses for years. There's an upcoming documentary film
that exposes them for who they truly are.

>Billion Dollar Bully is an investigative documentary that examines
allegations against Yelp regarding extortion, review manipulation, and review
fabrication.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dkJctUDIs)

~~~
quadrangle
Sure, but a despicable company may still have legitimate complaints about
other companies.

------
wannabe_miner
Unrelated but related, what is it like to work at Yelp?

I was recently contacted by them for a position but it didn't inspire
confidence. The mention of a "shoestring operation" in this article is making
me believe I made the right choice.

~~~
x0x0
It depends on position. They treat CSRs like absolute shit -- see Talia Jane.
Given a choice, I'd prefer not to work for companies that treat any employee
like that.

~~~
jimmywanger
I've read her article. ([https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-
ceo-fb73d...](https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-
fb73df021e7a))

It really has nothing substantive to say except "I'm struggling, pay me more."

She even points to several facts in her article.

"She ended up leaving the company and moving east, somewhere the minimum wage
could double as a living wage."

"But boy did I not anticipate a decade and a half ago that a car and a credit
card and an apartment would all be symbols of stress, not success."

If you hate the job that badly or feel like you're not being renumerated
properly, you have options open. I'm assuming she doesn't have a house,
because of the mention of her apartment.

Yelp is not holding a gun to your head. Neither are they responsible for
paying you what you think is necessary for a comfortable life.

~~~
x0x0
If you want to support a company that pays employees $12.50/hour in sf, that's
your choice. However, I don't support that, and the thing about employment at
will is we can use how a potential employer treats employees to evaluate the
employer.

> _Neither are they responsible for paying you what you think is necessary for
> a comfortable life._

However, kindly don't misrepresent the contents of Talia's article and shift
the goalposts from "comfortable life" to "remain housed _and_ eat (and even
see a doctor when necessary)." Because she's asking for the bare minimums, not
a comfortable life.

~~~
manigandham
> However, I don't support that

No company cares because that's not how it works. Companies pay what the job
is worth, then increase as needed if talent isn't available. Minimum wage work
that anyone can do is not worth anything beyond that wage, regardless of where
someone lives.

> she's asking for the bare minimums

No she's not. The job is worth a certain amount and deciding to accept and
live with that is up to you. She was completely irresponsible by moving to an
expensive area, getting a min. wage job and living beyond her means. 100% her
fault. Then writing a strange article playing victim and calling out the CEO
while including links to donate to her paypal account is about as ridiculous
as it gets.

------
home_boi
What I find troubling about Yelp's arguments and the antitrust situation is
that these parties are basically telling a company what its website must look
like and have.

They are saying that a website must conform to their idea of a search page
which contains only plain text search results.

------
quickben
I'm under the impression that only EU slaps antitrust charges lately.

~~~
nostromo
It seems political. The EU is taking on a lot of US companies with antitrust
complaints but few EU companies.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
This is an excellent way to try and distract from the actual issues the EU has
charged them with, and try to delegitimize the claims of one of the largest
governments in the world because you like the company they're going after this
week.

The EU has filed plenty of antitrust complaints against EU companies, but the
reality is, particularly in the tech field, US monopolists are dominating. The
fact that there are more US companies breaking the law, does not mean the EU
filing more cases against US companies is political.

------
dep_b
The problem is that there's Google the search engine and Google the answer
engine. They should split off the answer engine part into something completely
new, based on Google search results but with the decoration they like to add
and they think is the reason people love to use Google. Including integration
into your mail, private thoughts, everything. Give that to the people who love
it. Integrate it with Android and some kind of voice device in your living
room. Experience this and that.

Google.com should go back to a search box, two buttons, three ads and ten
results per page. No content mix, just pure results. Honest search, only
external results. No abuse of monopoly.

------
zebraflask
The thing with Yelp is that the negative reviews usually have a grain a truth
to them.

I think they should pivot into an Internet complaints department.

------
bsder
I wish this were any company other than Yelp pushing things.

Yelp is sufficiently slimy in and unto themselves that it hurts their case.

------
ben_utzer
yelp and tripadvisor basically destroyed the usage of "site:.XX" on google.
Now every time I want to look for information on a specific country, I have to
skip the first 2-4 results because they are almost "spam"

------
kefka
Indeed, Google is too big and has a massive effect on the Internet across the
whole world. A single capricious decision made by Google/Alphabet can cause
dozens of businesses to shutter or fail. And that is a big problem, especially
if we care about upstarts and new companies.

However, that responsibility they fail to take in consideration except by
lawsuit, does not counteract YELP's BaaS - Blackmail as a Service. They have
been known to, time and again, to shake down companies as local as mom-and-pop
restaurants and other "juicy" targets. If YELP were to die today, we would be
better off. They are the broken window in the Broken Window Theory of
economics, and exact their damage by "Oh no, someone else wrote bad things
about you - Pay us and they'll go away".

The courts ruled incorrectly about their doings. They should have been ordered
to cease and desist. Or owners should be able to order them to bring down
their respective reviews. Perhaps impartial review sites have a good reason to
exist, but Yelp has shown that if you don't pay their protection money, you
get all the bad ratings put forth and all the good ones 'disappear'.

Blackmail as a Service. As founded by the Better Business Bureau, and
continued by Yelp.

(Edit: Evidently, I struck a chord that people don't like. I'd prefer that
people rebut me instead of -1's that mean effectively nothing other than "shut
up". )

~~~
ClassyJacket
You're absolutely right. Yelp adds no value the dozens of other review apps
don't, they simply succed because they extort and blackmail small businesses.
I refuse to install their app and the quicker they die the better.

~~~
keymone
> they extort and blackmail small businesses

do you have any evidence of this?

~~~
ClassyJacket
Hundreds of first hand accounts

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_of_bullying_businesses_into_paying/)

Plus everything in Billion Dollar Bully.

It's fact at this point.

