Yelp Tries to Hush Those Pesky Lawsuits

Remember how news came last year that the San Francisco-based Yelp was using the "Favorite Review" feature to strong-arm businesses into becoming advertisers? Well, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has a response to the lawsuits, as reported by food editor John Birdsall on SF Weekly's blog. Looks like CEO Stoppelman's goal...

By Nick Rallo

April 6, 2010

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Remember how news came last year that the San Francisco-based Yelp was using the "Favorite Review" feature to strong-arm businesses into becoming advertisers? Well, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman has a response to the lawsuits, as reported by food editor John Birdsall on SF Weekly's blog.

Looks like CEO Stoppelman's goal is to bring the power back to the people and away from the machine. Or, so you might think. As Birdsall quotes, Kathleen Wentz of East Bay Express remains skeptical: "it's still unclear how Yelp decides what order to display a business' reviews, and it's possible that manipulation is still occurring."

Consider this round one of a long fight indeed.

We're just wondering if anything can be done about those headache-inducing reviewers who post their responses in all CAPS. Yelp, can you do something about all the internet yelling?

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