YELP! INC (YELP)

[overachiever]

YELP is a disingenuous scam. It's so-called algorithm is designed to manage traffic away from non-advertisers and over to those who are paying the advertising vig. It has nothing to do with whether or not it suspects reviews are being manipulated.

YELP filters out many of the good reviews of businesses that have refused to advertise in an attempt to drive traffic to the businesses that have paid the piper and have advertised.

YELP can do what they want with their site, but it is fraud for them to assert that their algorithm is neutral when it is not. It is also deceptive to the people who use YELP to find retailers and who are led to believe that what they are seeing on the unfiltered side of their site is in any way representative of the way customers have rated a business.

Since YELP actively manages their site and the content thereon in this discriminating fashion, they will likely end up in trouble with the FTC. Could be why insiders are dumping shares as fast as they can get rid of them.