Replies to post #134 on YELP! INC (YELP)

[overachiever]

Yelp's filter is not much more than a traffic cop. It attempts to control traffic by driving it from listed non advertisers to paid advertising customers. Otherwise, why would the same reviews constantly go up and come down with the "switch" being spikes in views or actions on the non-advertising listed businesses? Nope. Yelp itself is about 40 to 50% scam.

Yelp's filter can not determine if a person walks by a restaurant or a hair or waxing studio and does a check-in to a business with which that fake customer has not really had a legit interaction, can it? No, it can't. Like I said, easy to game.

In addition, There has been a large upswing in so-called SEO companies which do nothing more than attempt to raise the Yelp ratings of their clients and at the same time post false negative reviews on their client's competition. Yelp is not able to stop that.

I have done a significant amount of research into Yelp's procedures and the way the site really works. Yelp's claims about it's filter are mostly nonsense.

[overachiever]

There is no excuse on the part of any website which attempts to control content the way Yelp controls it to allow malicious libel against a small business. Yelp does not stop libelous reviews from appearing against a business and then attempts to protect the libelous posters. It's not operating within the accepted standards of current internet libel law.

The first time one of these disaffected businesses hires a really good libel/constitutional law attorney, it's game over for Yelp. Up until now, they have been faced with lawyers that do not have a good technical understanding of how to go about attacking Yelp's business model.

[overachiever]

Jeremy Stoppelman knows he has problems with Yelp. That is most likely why he is dumping stock as fast as the law allows.