Nine small businesses have joined the class action lawsuit against Yelp alleging that internet review site extorts businesses that by demanding money to hide negative reviews.
The new plaintiffs were added in an amended complaint filed in the month-old California lawsuit. They include a cruise line, appliance repair company, bakery, pet grooming service and a furniture store. The lawsuit charges extortion, fraud, and unfair business practices.
Yelp was founded in 2004 by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, with backgrounds in computer engineering and computer science. The online guide has been criticized by businesses alleging that sales reps for Yelp manipulate reviews based on whether businesses buy advertisements with them.
Yelp lawyers have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit with the California court. However, company officials have repeatedly denied any culpability in the case. A scheduling conference is set for April 26 in United States District Court, Central District of California.
Attorney Elizabeth Lee Beck, whose California law firm represents the plaintiffs, says future amendments to the lawsuit likely will be necessary as more businesses seek to be included in the action.
“We've been contacted by every type of business that you can imagine, all across the country,” she says. “We've been certainly contacted by a number of veterinarians, doctors and dentists, just to name a few from the medical profession.”
The complaint centers on Yelp’s review filter, which plaintiffs claim is being manipulated. According to Yelp, the allegations are based on a lack of knowledge about how the system works.
Stephanie Ichinose, Yelp’s director of communications, explains:
"Yelp users write reviews and post them to the site. Yelp does not verify the authenticity of reviewers but attempts to present the most useful and helpful reviews from engaged community members, many of whom have complete profiles and are frequent Yelp users."
Thirty million people visit the site monthly, making Yelp high-stakes publicity for businesses in the 35 major markets where the site is anchored. With that kind of leverage has emerged users who try to game the system by posting glowing reviews to promote businesses, usually for a fee. It’s a practice known as shilling, Ichinose says.
To combat shil reviews, Yelp employs a custom review filter to look for patterns of abuse. While Ichinose would not detail the filter’s recipe for catching phony reviews, she explained that it’s built on algorithms in the software.
“Yelp isn’t a place where you can come in and throw up a review and expect it to remain. That doesn’t foster a sense of community,” Ichinose says. “We're trying to return the most helpful reviews for this business. Yelp is word-of-mouth in digital form, and we’re weighting voices. We want folks engaged in this process.”
Shilling is not an easy problem to solve, Ichinose admits. So she understands how business owners might be confused by the system: “Say you had 10 five-star reviews. Then a couple weeks later, you get a call from someone at Yelp to advertise. You come back, and six of the reviews have been suppressed by the filter and you only have four reviews still standing. The confluence of these independent events can be very confusing if you don't know about the filter.”
Related posts:
No Responses to “Yelp class action lawsuit expands” Leave a reply ›