I came across a little tidbit in last Wednesday’s East Bay Express, out in the San Francisco area, that shows yet again the ever-increasing power of the Internet. In the article, a disturbing and unethical practice by a locally-based social site, Yelp.com, was exposed. It showed that when it came to business reviews its users have posted, the good folks at Yelp could give lessons to the thugs who ran the old Soviet propaganda rag Pravda, or the worst shakedown artist ever to hold the Illinois governor’s office, which is saying something.
The way the Yelp system works is that users who hold a free account with the site are allowed to post online reviews of shops and stores in the area. A four-star rating system is also involved, from the looks of things. Or the threat of exile to Detroit, in the case of negative reviews. Just kidding about the Detroit thing (maybe). But, the really nasty part in all this is what the Yelp ad staff does with the “you’re being relocated to Motown” write-ups. It seems the attack dogs contact the businesses on the receiving end of these unfavorable reviews with an offer of extortion, I mean, with an offer of help: Pony up from three-hundred to a thousand dollars a month to advertise on Yelp, and those negative reviews will be “moved” further down the review pages, lessening the chance of any being read. I think the word used in most totalitarian states for this kind of practice is “disappearing” something, but the sales folks were never caught being so bold as to actually threaten folks like a good dictator might’ve done, because they’re not that brave.
Nope, their veiled threats were much more cowardly, though the effect is just as if they’d came by, slapped you around a bit, offered “protection,” and then reached into the cash register on the way out, just like a Mafia footsoldier would do. The implication was clear: Pay up, and only the good reviews would show, though there may be evidence of those “going away,” too, in cases where a business owner decides not to advertise. In any case, if you declined their “offer-you-can’t-refuse” you could expect your shop to be depicted as the worst business this side of a salmonella-producing peanut processing plant down in Georgia, to use just a little hyperbole.
I did some checking around into how ad sales work and nobody I’ve spoken with seems willing to defend Yelp’s practice. Besides, it cheats people who rely on user-generated reviews for honest appraisals of a service or store. Like me, when it comes to picking out the best back-hair wax removal salons or auto parts places for my ‘66 Rambler station wagon. I also have a bit of a problem with people using sites such as these to either auto-generate positive reviews or to engage in a negative-review war against some business they feel did them a personal wrong, but that’s for another time and another column.
Maybe Yelp needs to re-think its business model. Perhaps spend a bit of time in Detroit to gain a new perspective on things, and then open a porn site. They do good business, I’m told. But, they should definitely stay away from the user review thing because the Mafia doesn’t take kindly to others muscling in on its protection racket.
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