Yelp Using Negative Reviews for Sales
Yelp, the online review database that has become an ubiquitous part of the Web, is being accused of shielding companies who pay premiums from bad reviews. Yelp’s sales team has been using poor reviews as a sales tool, implying that businesses can pay their way out of hot water caused by user reviews. Since 2008, some 2,000 complaints have been filed by businesses and consumers. Yelp also has several problems with anonymous reviews, and currently faces a court order demanding they reveal the identity of users who posted on their website. Yelp...
read moreYelp going after Fake Reviews
Yelp is one of the most important destinations on the Web. Its database of user-generated reviews can offer potential shoppers a quality source to vet a business before they shop. But faked reviews are threatening to dilute that landscape, eating away at the purity that a service like Yelp needs in order to be successful. In response, the company has announced new and aggressive steps to remove these false reviews. The CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppleman, is creating something of a firestorm with the announcement. Companies caught “soliciting”...
read moreOur CEO to be speaking about Reputation Management
Our CEO “Pierre Zarokian” will be speaking about Reputation Management on Feb 19, 2014 in Orange County, CA at an event organized by TechBiz Connection. Jack Bicer the president of TechBiz Connection stated: “If you are a professional intrigued by today’s evolving world of social media, personal online identities, and online business branding, you need to learn what it means to have an online presence and what this says about you (or your business, brand). After all, your online reputation IS your reputation.” The...
read moreNew Court Ruling Requires Yelp to Surrender User Data
A ruling from a Virginia Court of Appeals has rendered anonymous reviews unprotected, at least in Virginia. The popular online review website Yelp is at the center of litigation regarding the legitimacy of anonymous reviews. On one side is Yelp, whose terms of service explicitly ban users from posting faked reviews that are negative or positive. On the other side are the businesses hurt by these reviews. This landmark case will shape the landscape of online reviews for some time to come. The plaintiff’s case seems to mirror the plight of so...
read moreYelp Lawsuit seeks to get Yelpers paid for reviews
A class action lawsuit filed in California seeks to get Yelpers paid for reviews. The lawsuit claims that Yelp runs a cult like environment and instead of paying the reviewers, it offers them badges, titles such as “Elite”, praise, free liquor and food, and free promotional Yelp attire, such as red panties with ‘Make Me Yelp!’ We spoke to one of the plaintiffs, Lilly Jueng, who is an Elite reviewer. She claimed that Yelp was very restrictive of what she was able to post and cancelled her account when they were not happy...
read moreYelp Sues Law Firm for Posting Fake Reviews
McMillan Law Group in San Diego has been sued for posting fake reviews on Yelp. McMillan apparently posted several reviews from the same IP address in their office. To their defense they claim that they had invited their clients to a party at their office and asked them to leave reviews from their computers. One of their clients has publicly confirmed this. McMillan also claims that the lawsuit has no merit and it was done as a retaliation because Yelp lost a small claims case against them over an advertising dispute. This is not the first...
read moreHas Bing Stopped Honoring Court Orders to Remove Defamatory Content?
Our CEO Pierre Zarokian has written a new article about Bing’s alleged change of heart on removing court-ordered defamatory content from its search engine. Has Bing truly changed its policy? If your online reputation has been tainted, you know how devastating it can be to have defamatory content about you or your company featured on the web for everyone to see. Major search engines such as Google and Yahoo are usually fair about the issue. If they receive an order from the court to remove defamatory content, they usually comply by removing...
read moreBusiness Owners Frustrated with Yelp Reviews at Town Hall Meeting
Recently Yelp held a town hall meeting and invited a few business owners to attend so they can discuss their programs and answer any questions about Yelp Advertising services. However, the meeting backfired and turned out to be a complaint forum from pissed up businesses. The audience got aggressive with their questions and complaints on how their legit reviews get filtered. However, Yelp only wanted to discuss the benefits of their advertising services. LA Times was there to cover the story. Read more details...
read moreTheDirty loses Reputation Management Lawsuit
TheDirty has lost a lawsuit against Sarah Jones who claimed damaging posts were posted on thedirty.com about her that destroyed her reputation. This is a major victory for the reputation management industry as the judge has allowed the case to go through, while thedirty had claimed immunity due to the Communication Decency Act (CDA) which protects public forums from any liability when 3rd party content is posted. Due to the owner Nik Richie making edits to posts, the judge did not accept the CDA as a defense. Sarah Jones had previously...
read moreHow to remove negative post from pissed consumer
If you are looking to completely remove posts from Pissed Consumer, this may not be easy. PissedConsumer will not remove any negative reviews unless they get a court order to do so. This means that first you need to figure out who posted the review, then sue them and if you actually win, you can request the court to order a removal. This could be a very costly method, specially if you do not know who the posted is. In which case, you would need to file a “John Doe” lawsuit and then subpena the Pissed Consumer records to get the...
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