[kefka]

Indeed, Google is too big and has a massive effect on the Internet across the whole world. A single capricious decision made by Google/Alphabet can cause dozens of businesses to shutter or fail. And that is a big problem, especially if we care about upstarts and new companies.

However, that responsibility they fail to take in consideration except by lawsuit, does not counteract YELP's BaaS - Blackmail as a Service. They have been known to, time and again, to shake down companies as local as mom-and-pop restaurants and other "juicy" targets. If YELP were to die today, we would be better off. They are the broken window in the Broken Window Theory of economics, and exact their damage by "Oh no, someone else wrote bad things about you - Pay us and they'll go away".

The courts ruled incorrectly about their doings. They should have been ordered to cease and desist. Or owners should be able to order them to bring down their respective reviews. Perhaps impartial review sites have a good reason to exist, but Yelp has shown that if you don't pay their protection money, you get all the bad ratings put forth and all the good ones 'disappear'.

Blackmail as a Service. As founded by the Better Business Bureau, and continued by Yelp.

(Edit: Evidently, I struck a chord that people don't like. I'd prefer that people rebut me instead of -1's that mean effectively nothing other than "shut up". )

[dang]

You've behaved so atrociously in this thread—with personal attacks, rants, and other violations of HN's guidelines—that you managed to sacrifice whatever high ground you began from and end up well in the hole. It's dismaying to see how much damage a single commenter on tilt can do.

We ban people for this kind of thing, so please don't do it again. Civil and substantive comments only (or no comments) from now on, please.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14697996 and marked it off-topic.

[ClassyJacket]

You're absolutely right. Yelp adds no value the dozens of other review apps don't, they simply succed because they extort and blackmail small businesses. I refuse to install their app and the quicker they die the better.

[keymone]

> they extort and blackmail small businesses

do you have any evidence of this?

[saurik]

> However, that responsibility they fail to take in consideration except by lawsuit, does not counteract YELP's BaaS - Blackmail as a Service.

...and that you have reason to dislike Yelp or even think they are hypocritical does not counteract the problem with Google, which is the topic at hand, making your comment seem like nothing more than a defense of vigilanteism :/.

[kefka]

I would accept the accusation of defense of vigilantism, but I only highlighted the issue. I see it as a "Pot calls Kettle Black", but I do not advocate a response, other than that the courts handled it incorrectly.

I can have fault with both Google/Alphabet and Yelp. They each can have their own form of hypocrisy and potentially illegal behaviors. Me calling one out doesn't lessen the other's actions.

[keymone]

> have been known to, time and again, to shake down companies

do you have any evidence of this?

[kefka]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-alleged...

Restaurant tells everyone to leave bad ratings, because good ratings are hidden since they didn't pay extortion.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f/yelp_is_blackma...

Yelp "makes 4-5 star reviews go away" when restaurant refuses to pay extortion.

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http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-yelps-blackmail-lawsuit-c...

Stoppelman says that businesses want to control their reputation, and Yelp's position is to charge for that. Question here is, if money means hiding bad reviews, is that extortion? Sure seems so.

-----------------------------

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2014/09/03/court-sa...

The courts said that "Pay to Play" isn't strictly extortion. And claims that Yelp themselves wrote bad reviews were unsubstantiated (no proof, server logs can be a 'tricksy' thing....).

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https://www.cnet.com/news/to-mock-yelp-restaurant-asks-custo...

This has gotten bad enough, that businesses are telling customers to seed YELP with good "Bad reviews".

-----------------------------

Seriously, when they call, and you fail to pay, your page on YELP goes to the toilet. How much "proof" do you need? There seems to be a misdirection by blaming 3rd party customers, but seriously. They're using blackmail as their market strategy.