
Protecting Free Speech: Why Yelp Is Marking Businesses That Sue Their Customers - medmunds
https://www.yelpblog.com/2016/07/protecting-free-speech-yelp-marking-businesses-sue-customers
======
brightball
My only concern is around the lack of ability for businesses to respond or
request any level of verification that a person actually did business with
them. The BBB at least contacts the business and oversees a process for
resolution (documenting the entire thing).

I personally know multiple business owners who've dealt with threats from
customers who will go and write a bad review if they don't simply bow to
demands. Medical offices are another issue entirely because many medical
professional don't even know if they are allowed to respond to complaints due
to HIPAA.

I know one who even had a bad review from a phone call from a woman that
simply called and yelled at them for not getting free service. It was their
first and only review in years. Never even set foot in the building.

People are basically given permission to hang a sign on your front door that
you're not allowed to take down.

I'm all for reviews and feedback but at least Amazon shows "Amazon Verified
Purchase". Balance it somehow with either cross reference to the BBB or
document how many years the business has existed. There are far too many
businesses who've been open 10+ years with thousands of customers that have
never felt the necessity to leave a review.

Without verification that the person has actually a customer, it's basically
just libel.

~~~
oggedintocom
Off-topic, but would Amazon have anything to lose if they completely purged
all reviews by users without verified purchases?

It would certainly combat the spam reviews problem.

~~~
hueving
>but would Amazon have anything to lose

Potentially sales. Unfortunately they are in a spot right now where lots of
normal people not aware of the fraud see a product with 2000 reviews and 4.5
stars and take that as a strong signal that it's a good buy. They are
conditioned to think that 'lots of reviews == well vetted'. If suddenly the
review counts plunge by 90% people might be more wary of making a purchase.

They almost need to figure out a way to keep both. Maybe keep the review count
for everyone but make the star rating just based on verified purchases...

~~~
Keverw
It'd be cool if they added a checkbox to see only verified reviews in your
searches and product pages.

------
TimSchumann
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that Yelp is doing this? The same Yelp
that was built on the back of some of the most aggressive, manipulative,
downright shady marketing tactics out there?

I've heard multiple complaints from Mom & Pop shops in my neighborhood which
basically amount to Yelp calling and saying "Sign up for our premium business
package or the negative reviews stay at the top"

~~~
elliotec
Wondering the same thing... odd it has not been mentioned.

~~~
lsmarigo
apparently there's a doc coming about this called "Billion Dollar Bully" from
some small independent filmmakers which yelp is already trying to pre-
emptively discredit: [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/yelp-accused-mob-
like-...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/yelp-accused-mob-like-
behavior-814981)

------
slapp672
As a SLAPP victim, Yelp's decision to punch-down against a pet-sitting
business is a slap in my face. A few years back I was sued by a chain of
business for $2 Million. These were private-equity financed businesses which
serially sue customers, as I later verified using public records search. I
complained to Yelp, to no avail.

I went to a lawyer who told me that they have a lot of cash in the bank and
that I don't want to fight them, and encouraged me to sign a non-disparagement
agreement and pay them some money and move on with my life. I took his advice.

I lost over $20K due to this, as well as months of frustration in which my
career and family life took a hit.

Still quite angry, I watched, (using public records requests) as they
continued to sue more customers, contractors, or anyone else. Eventually, I
found a lawsuit in which they directly contradicted claims they had made in
their complaint against me, and even provided 100s of pages of documents
showing that my "defamatory" statements were correct! So I called a lawyer,
who reviewed the documents and told me that I have a very strong case to have
my settlement thrown out because it was fraudulent induced. However, he said
that that due to their history of Trump-like earth-scorching, it would be a
bad idea to pursue this without a big reserve of cash, patience, and nerves.
(In fact, the lawyer, who practices in NJ, mentioned Trump by name as an
analogy.)

When I was sued, my adversary was financed by private equity company funded by
someone with over $10 billion net worth. (This was one of my assertions that I
was sued for, which was later corroborated in court documents.) Yelp told me I
was on my own. Now Yelp is taking on Prestigious Pets, in an effort to protect
free speech.

So, Yelp, if you want to humiliate someone your own size, I'm happy to have a
confidential discussion with your lawyers. Let me know how to get in touch
with you.

~~~
kstenerud
Why is Yelp's project to help protect consumers from predatory companies a
slap in your face?

Is it because they didn't jump to it and lay down the massive cash it would
have taken to defend you? Do they somehow owe you? Do they dance to your tune?

An allegory:

As a fire victim, the town's decision to form a firefighter team is a slap in
my face. A few years back my house caught fire. The mayor wouldn't organize to
put it out so I was on my own.

~~~
slapp672
I'm upset because they didn't stand up for the little guy against the big guy
and then they decide to fight a little guy and claim they are protecting free
speech.

I'm not saying they owe me. I'm saying they have a professed legitimate
business interest in protecting free speech. They are claiming to be champions
on free speech but they are only going after a pet sitting business and other
small fry.

I'll update your allegory. Your house slowly burned down over a period of
several months and the fire dept did nothing. Later the mayor busted two kids
for lighting off bottle rockets, and declared the town to be leading the fight
against fire.

~~~
kstenerud
"They are claiming to be champions on free speech but they are only going
after a pet sitting business and other small fry."

I'd do exactly the same thing in their position. Start small. Learn the
(legal) ropes. Build up victories, a war chest, and generals. THEN go after
the big boys. Starting at the top is just plain irresponsible.

------
codelord
How adorable. Yelp taking the moral high ground. Once I wrote a negative
review for a business describing my personal experience with them. The company
first wrote me an email and asked me to remove it, I obviously didn't because
everything I wrote was true. Then Yelp removed my review, because it was
"irrelevant"! :-) Strangely enough, that business had all positive reviews on
Yelp with near 5/5 score, while on Google it had a score of around 2.5/5\.
Does anyone even care about Yelp scores at this point?

~~~
coldtea
> _Does anyone even care about Yelp scores at this point?_

Hundreds of millions of users?

~~~
zentiggr
Yelp, BBB, anyone who has a way to get money from the reviewed
companies/professionals... impossible to remain unbiased. Haven't trusted,
will never trust. Have a hard time believing Angie's List doesn't have the
same issue in the other direction.

Finding unbiased, un-"washed" reviews is NP-hard :/

------
mdip
I think one of the things Yelp has caused (or, perhaps, needs to cause) is a
change in consumer behavior related to bad reviews. I've learned, over the
years, to disregard certain kinds of bad reviews[0] or not choose to avoid a
company because it has a small number of poor reviews.

The Internet reminds of me of driving. Most people will scream at another
driver for cutting them off on a merge -- assuming the driver was being
aggressive and entitled (he thinks is time is _so much more important_ than
mine!). That same driver will find himself on a road, not paying enough
attention, only to discover his lane is ending at the last second and expects
another driver to let them in and understand it was just a mistake.

We scream because we don't see the other driver as a human being, just an
angry caricature of a bad driver (and we're not actually _confronting_ that
driver directly). On the Internet, we'll rip a mom and pop or small restaurant
business apart because of a server who had too many tables and one bad dining
experience. That same person likely didn't talk to the manager or give them an
opportunity to make the situation better because it's a lot less socially
intimidating to hit Yelp and tear into them via a bad review.

[0] My favorite is "bed bug" reports at hotels. Practically every single hotel
I've stayed at in the last few years has had at least one review claiming bed
bugs (some with pictures for evidence). It's a problem pretty much
_everywhere_ and in those reviews I look for a hint about how the hotel
handled the situation. If it was taken care of in a reasonable manner
(regardless of what the reviewer feels was reasonable), I won't hold it
against the hotel.

~~~
mikeash
What you describe in your second paragraph is a general phenomenon called the
fundamental attribution error:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

It's definitely helpful to keep in mind.

~~~
mdip
Interesting.

I had a boss about a decade ago that, during a really tense situation at my
last job involving a false report of an application of mine suffering from a
serious security vulnerability[0], said to me: "Where there are gaps of
understanding, people jump to the worst possible conclusion." It was
demonstrated so well during the follow-up meeting (where my application was
exonerated and the friendship remained) that I took it to heart and made it a
sort-of life mission. When something goes wrong, people assume the _absolute
worst_ but, as the Fundamental Attribution Error "bias" points out, we judge
others by a different set of rules than we judge ourselves.

If we assume that others _are generally operating without malice_ as we assume
ourselves to be, a whole lot of conflict is avoided.

[0] We had an app that was on a hardened box and had asked security to audit
it. The person who audited it didn't read that message and logged into the box
due to another reason. He was then shocked that this box was able to connect
to all of our infrastructure (for audit purposes) and he was still able to log
in (we gave him explicit permissions to do so). He changed the configuration
(without any notification) causing the application to stop and reporting to
fail, then tried to get it all shut down. We went into a meeting, angry, under
the perception that security was trying to kill this app because they
preferred their own (which didn't meet our needs) and he went in assuming we
were trying to be devious because our hardened configuration made it
impossible for their auditing tool to audit the app. We were both wrong.

------
anilgulecha
Businesses making profit off entities with positive reviews has been the norm:
e-commerce etc.

Business making profit off entities with negative reviews (GlassDoor, Yelp &
friends) reek of protection-rackets. These services are best decentralized
rather than be profit-seeking.

~~~
bduerst
Soliciting someone to pay for an account to remove negative public reviews
comes close to blackmail, correct?

~~~
hueving
Close, but not quite. Blackmail would be if they held the negative reviews and
then released them if they refused to pay.

This is more like a sleezy PR person that offers to help bury a story that
they themselves are promoting.

~~~
rplst8
It's sort of like extortion.

------
troydavis
If Yelp put accuracy and completeness ahead of # of reviews, they'd have
already made 2 changes:

1\. Let anyone comment on other people's comments - like HN or Reddit, with
similar reputation (points) and up/downvotes.

Right now, unless an owner monitors and responds to every negative comment,
there's no recourse for being unreasonable or flat-out inaccurate. Even when
an owner does so, the recourse is minimal. Let any other Yelp user reply,
turning each comment into a thread.

2\. When someone posts a 1- or 2-star review, show a second, required comment
field for "What happened when you informed the retailer?"

If someone is served a meal they don't like and says nothing at the time, they
skipped a - the - critical step. While there are cases where a low review
could be justified without ever giving the retailer a chance to address the
perceived problem (like if someone showed up twice during posted business
hours and the retailer was closed), they cause fewer than 10% of 1- and 2-star
ratings and they're easy to explain. Otherwise, the minimum for a negative
review to be constructive is having informed the retailer (and let them try to
address it).

~~~
scojjac
There have been many times I wished for an up/down vote on Yelp reviews.

------
JustUhThought
Doing the right thing in one instance of one aspect of "free speech" is not
"protecting free speech".

Protecting free speech is about a framework of process, transparency,
inclusion, and democracy.

Yelp is not a transparent, inclusive democracy with processes in place to
ensure we can each express ourselves freely. It is a business, driven by
business decisions, run by business people, for its customer, in the interest
of it owners.

Period.

~~~
talmand
I like the strangeness of the situation. If private company does A, it's not
about free speech because that's a government thing. If private company does
B, look at this company protecting our free speech!

I wish as a society we can make up our minds on this.

------
mc32
I guess the problem for yelp and for businesses is that yelp wants to be the
crowd sourced zaggat's. Semi honest reviews of businesses.

For most people it's a place to complain about businesses and most don't make
an effort of being a good reviewer, even when they want to just provide a
public service review. They tend to be subjective personal opinions of
businesses.

------
scosman
This blog post is missing some important details. Sometimes legal actions from
businesses are empty or meritless. However, what if it's legitimate libel?
Labeling any legal action as "questionable" seems odd. How do they
differentiate?

------
mcslick12
I think the biggest problem with Yelp is fake reviews intended to harm a
business either from competition or disgruntled ex-employees. They allow
1-star reviews from throwaway accounts to stay on the front page and filter 5
star reviews from active users unless you pay for their service which includes
'account management support' to dispute fake reviews.

------
ucaetano
I wouldn't be surprised if Yelp added a feature where businesses that sue
their customers can pay a fee to remove the mark.

------
Kpourdeilami
Businesses can perhaps incentivize their customers to write good reviews by
offering a discount in exchange for a review on Yelp. When the customers are
paying the bill, they can ask them for a 1-5 star rating posted alongside a
photo of that customer to their Yelp page as some sort of a proof that the
said business is not making up those star ratings.

~~~
csydas
I'm sorry you're getting downvoted, but to explain why I think this opinion
isn't popular, look at Amazon. There's an entire sub-economy of exchange for
reviews with unspoken rules. Choose about any product and you'll likely find
the phrasing "I received a discount in exchange for my unbiased review of this
product" or "I receive a demo version of this product in exchange for my
unbiased review", or some other similar disclaimer.

There's nothing technically wrong with what's happening there, since there is
no formal arrangement of good review = free product, but it's perfectly
understood without a single word being said that if your reviews are too
critical, you will not be receiving discounts/demo items in exchange for an
unbiased review any more.

Your idea isn't quite the same if I understand it since the restaurant isn't
enticing people in with the promise of a discount for reviews, but it's hard
to say that you're not being influenced for favor when receiving something
like that. It's why I believe it's a journalistic ethical standard to refuse
gifts/outings from businesses and individuals as it may compromise
journalistic integrity. Whether or not that's actually followed or just a
super-ideal is another matter entirely

------
studentrob
Good to see businesses advertising this too.

It's already against the law for a business to punish you for writing a
negative review. Many people do not know they can sue when a business tries
this. That's what the Consumer Review Fairness Act is about - letting the
public know their rights. It's basically the government trying to teach people
the law. And Yelp would be helping by promoting this.

Good job Yelp.

------
mlissner
This first amendment says the government can't abridge your speech. The
government is not doing that here, so mentioning the first amendment adds more
confusion to the concept of free speech than it adds clarity. It's about as
useful as mentioning any of the other amendments.

~~~
dangrossman
If customers were actually in legal peril for writing honest but negative
reviews of businesses on Yelp, then that would be the government abridging
their speech. The court system is part of the government.

This message's purpose is to educate customers that the legal threats
businesses are making in those situations are idle ones. They're idle ones
because of the first amendment.

It's perfectly relevant here.

~~~
mlissner
No, businesses are saying that it's libel or slander or something else, and if
you responded to their suit by saying anything about your first amendment
rights, your be laughed out of court.

Yelp's message should be about libel and slander and things like that.

~~~
dangrossman
"No" what? Those are the legal threats both I and Yelp are talking about.
Here's the case Yelp used as an example:

[http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016/06/plano-couple-
hit-...](http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016/06/plano-couple-hit-
with-1m-lawsuit-over-one-star-yelp-review-asks-judge-to-drop-suit.html/)

The business sued for libel. The customer's lawyer filed a motion to dismiss,
citing first amendment rights. The business dropped its suit. Nobody's
laughing.

The business filed a second suit, this time alleging the customer violated a
non-disparagement clause in a contract with the business. The customer's
lawyer filed another motion to dismiss, citing their first amendment rights.
That one's still pending, but nobody's laughing.

Here's a copy of the ANTI-SLAPP motion to dismiss the second suit. SLAPP laws
exist to ensure the courts are never used to impede your first amendment
rights via the cost of mounting a legal defense. Showing that the defendant
was exercising their right of free speech is a required element of making that
motion, so it's certainly not going to provoke any laughter in the courtroom.

[http://www.citizen.org/documents/DuchouquetteSLAPPmotion.pdf](http://www.citizen.org/documents/DuchouquetteSLAPPmotion.pdf)

------
tedmiston
Nothing to do with the post, but I wonder why they've chosen to host the blog
on a separate domain instead of a subdomain on the official site. I did
confirm blog.yelp.com redirects to it, but still it's easy to be suspicious of
a separate domain not having the same owners.

~~~
mikeash
I gather that this sort of thing happens a lot because the bureaucracy around
getting IT to set up a subdomain is so onerous that it becomes easier to just
buy a new domain and set it up independently.

~~~
talmand
But wouldn't IT buy and set up the new domain?

~~~
mikeash
Normally, yes, but it's quite possible for another department to go out and do
it themselves. Corporate policies might not forbid it, or the other department
might not care about breaking policy. All you need to set up a new domain is a
credit card and a web browser, after all.

------
throwaway420
Not that Yelp doing this isn't a good thing, but an obvious side benefit for
them is that they now have a database of super litigious folks who they know
to steer their shady marketing practices well clear of because they don't want
that kind of headache.

------
initram
This sounds a little odd to me:

>the Consumer Review Fairness Act, prohibits inclusion of gag clauses in
consumer form contracts

Won't that just lead to some businesses asking you (in a sneaky way that you
don't realize unless you read several pages of legalese) to sign an NDA?

------
jjp
It would be really helpful to also see the reviewers summary. Then that way I
could see if the reviewer is usually balanced or positive then a negative
review has more weight whereas if you are a serial bad mouther I can more
easily discount your opinion.

------
darkerside
> may be trying to abuse the legal system in an effort to stifle free speech

I'm not a lawyer... but doesn't this open Yelp up to allegations of libel?

As a side note, I am really starting to be irritated by confirmation buttons
that say things like "Got it, thanks!". Stop putting words into my digital
mouth!

------
cloudjacker
> but there will always be a small handful of businesses who mistakenly think
> it’s a good idea to threaten consumers who exercise their free speech right

Wh... what? the free speech right only covers repercussions initiated by the
government. Businesses are not the government so consumers have no free speech
right or expectation here.

~~~
coldtea
> _the free speech right only covers repercussions initiated by the
> government. Businesses are not the government so consumers have no free
> speech right or expectation here._

That's a provincial US view, constricting it to what the constitution says,
etc.

In any case, it's inadequate for the era that we live in.

There's more to free speech and freedom of expression than avoiding
"repercussions initiated by the government", especially these days where large
private interests can be as large or larger than governments and equally
powerful.

Even if the government is allowing you to speak up against some mogul in X
Latin American country, if he has his people intimidating or even killing you,
that's an attack on your "free speech".

In the same way, big business can stifle free speech, as can various churches,
internet companies censoring stuff selectively, etc...

~~~
mason240
>In any case, it's inadequate for the era that we live in.

>There's more to free speech and freedom of expression than avoiding
"repercussions initiated by the government", especially these days where large
private interests can be as large or larger than governments and equally
powerful.

This recent trend of people from the left encouraging infringement on speech
by corporations been very shocking to me.

