4 ms·

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

by kefka 9y ago

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". )

ClassyJacket 9y ago
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 9y ago
  > they extort and blackmail small businesses do you have any evidence of this?
  - kefka 9y ago
    (This post is copied so others can see this. Tl;Dr. User [keymone] is a developer at YELP. ) You've been consistently a bad actor here, regarding Yelp. So, I searched google with "keymone yelp" (keymone is the HN username), and found the following: https://github.com/keymone https://github.com/keymone [Name Removed] Yelp Hamburg, Germany http://www.yelp.com http://www.yelp.com Organizations @Yelp Hmm...... Uusally people with direct interests (like yourself), will properly disclaim (I WORK FOR X, BUT NOT THEIR OPINIONS). _________________________________ https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=1zHW3SSTF3RFjHkgHzRQvw https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=1zHW3SSTF3RFjHkgHzR... Same pic as the Github profile. Certainly not a coincidence. _________________________________ https://twitter.com/keymone https://twitter.com/keymone Again, this says "happy developer" at Yelp.com _________________________________ Yeah, I'd suggest if you were to play the devil's advocate, I would properly disclaim that "[You] work at Yelp as a developer" instead of me playing guessing games and finally google your name and see dozens of profiles with the same Skiing pic. Frankly, you prove more of what I'm saying. So, tell me. How many proxies do you use when you seed bad reviews for companies that don't pay up? Because already, what you're doing is SHADY SHIT.
  - ClassyJacket 9y ago
    Hundreds of first hand accounts https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_of_bullying_businesses_into_paying/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_o... Plus everything in Billion Dollar Bully. It's fact at this point.
keymone 9y ago
> have been known to, time and again, to shake down companies do you have any evidence of this?
- kefka 9y ago
  http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-alleged-extortion/ 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. ----------------------------- https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f/yelp_is_blackmailing_my_sisters_restaurant/ 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. ----------------------------- http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-yelps-blackmail-lawsuit-ceo-stoppelman-seems-to-hate-his-advertisers/ 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-says-yelp-doesnt-extort-businesses/#2be47f8a6e4a 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....). ----------------------------- https://www.cnet.com/news/to-mock-yelp-restaurant-asks-customers-for-awful-reviews/ 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.
  - keymone 9y ago
    > Restaurant tells everyone to leave bad ratings so a PR campaign, > https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f.. https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f... top comment from the same page: so, I found the Yelp page, and there are 26 reviews filtered out. Of those, the reviewers have a combined 27 friends, and they all come from just 5 people. None of them has more than 15 reviews, and the majority have less than 3. If you have almost no friends and almost no reviews, your reviews are probably going to get filtered out. Also, a lot of her 5-star reviews happened in a 3-day period, which reeks of fake-reviews, > Question here is, if money means hiding bad reviews, is that extortion? you have not yet demonstrated "money means hiding bad reviews" but already sure it's extortion, > Forbes article - Court Says Yelp Doesn't Extort Businesses oooook? > cnet article article about same business from your first link > when they call, and you fail to pay, your page on YELP goes to the toilet. How much "proof" do you need? you've made a claim, i believe you forgot to include the "proof"? that specific claim by the way is trivially demonstrable using wayback machine
saurik 9y ago
> 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 9y ago
  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.
dang 9y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14697996 and marked it off-topic.

by kefka 9y ago

ClassyJacket 9y ago

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 9y ago
> they extort and blackmail small businesses do you have any evidence of this?
- kefka 9y ago
  (This post is copied so others can see this. Tl;Dr. User [keymone] is a developer at YELP. ) You've been consistently a bad actor here, regarding Yelp. So, I searched google with "keymone yelp" (keymone is the HN username), and found the following: https://github.com/keymone https://github.com/keymone [Name Removed] Yelp Hamburg, Germany http://www.yelp.com http://www.yelp.com Organizations @Yelp Hmm...... Uusally people with direct interests (like yourself), will properly disclaim (I WORK FOR X, BUT NOT THEIR OPINIONS). _________________________________ https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=1zHW3SSTF3RFjHkgHzRQvw https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=1zHW3SSTF3RFjHkgHzR... Same pic as the Github profile. Certainly not a coincidence. _________________________________ https://twitter.com/keymone https://twitter.com/keymone Again, this says "happy developer" at Yelp.com _________________________________ Yeah, I'd suggest if you were to play the devil's advocate, I would properly disclaim that "[You] work at Yelp as a developer" instead of me playing guessing games and finally google your name and see dozens of profiles with the same Skiing pic. Frankly, you prove more of what I'm saying. So, tell me. How many proxies do you use when you seed bad reviews for companies that don't pay up? Because already, what you're doing is SHADY SHIT.
- ClassyJacket 9y ago
  Hundreds of first hand accounts https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_of_bullying_businesses_into_paying/ https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/2segh5/yelp_accused_o... Plus everything in Billion Dollar Bully. It's fact at this point.

keymone 9y ago

> have been known to, time and again, to shake down companies do you have any evidence of this?

kefka 9y ago
http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-alleged-extortion/ 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. ----------------------------- https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f/yelp_is_blackmailing_my_sisters_restaurant/ 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. ----------------------------- http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-yelps-blackmail-lawsuit-ceo-stoppelman-seems-to-hate-his-advertisers/ 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-says-yelp-doesnt-extort-businesses/#2be47f8a6e4a 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....). ----------------------------- https://www.cnet.com/news/to-mock-yelp-restaurant-asks-customers-for-awful-reviews/ 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.
- keymone 9y ago
  > Restaurant tells everyone to leave bad ratings so a PR campaign, > https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f.. https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/zdq0f... top comment from the same page: so, I found the Yelp page, and there are 26 reviews filtered out. Of those, the reviewers have a combined 27 friends, and they all come from just 5 people. None of them has more than 15 reviews, and the majority have less than 3. If you have almost no friends and almost no reviews, your reviews are probably going to get filtered out. Also, a lot of her 5-star reviews happened in a 3-day period, which reeks of fake-reviews, > Question here is, if money means hiding bad reviews, is that extortion? you have not yet demonstrated "money means hiding bad reviews" but already sure it's extortion, > Forbes article - Court Says Yelp Doesn't Extort Businesses oooook? > cnet article article about same business from your first link > when they call, and you fail to pay, your page on YELP goes to the toilet. How much "proof" do you need? you've made a claim, i believe you forgot to include the "proof"? that specific claim by the way is trivially demonstrable using wayback machine

saurik 9y ago

> 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 9y ago
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.

dang 9y ago

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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14697996 and marked it off-topic.