Technically speaking, there's nothing to stop Yelp from manipulating results within their search engine, just like there's nothing to stop Google. I mean we al

Technically speaking, there's nothing to stop Yelp from manipulating results within their search engine, just like there's nothing to stop Google. I mean we all think Google doesn't mess with search rankings but we all know they do (see the google blog post about catching Microsoft by inserting fake long-tail search results). In short, does Yelp do this? I don't see why not; there's basically no way for anyone to verify whether Yelp does this unless they get to dive into emails for discovery in a big trial. Then again, I have to think Yelp has enough integrity not to mess with results; but my point is you would never know except through hearsay and gossip. There's no ChillingEffects for Yelp Reviews.