A federal appeals court has given the consumer review site Yelp permission to lower or raise overall business ratings in exchange for money. Yelp has been accused of giving businesses that advertise with them higher ratings, but the claims have never been proved in court. Now the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco says that Yelp is allowed to do so.
“The business owners may deem the posting or order of user reviews as a threat of economic harm, but it is not unlawful for Yelp to post and sequence the reviews,” Judge Marsha Berzon wrote for the three-judge panel. “As Yelp has the right to charge for legitimate advertising services, the threat of economic harm that Yelp leveraged is, at most, hard bargaining.”
A class-action damage suit by small business owners who claimed Yelp was extorting them to sell ads was dismissed.
[Via SF Chronicle]
PN says
Hi FoodDude, just wanted to point out in case you hadn’t noticed that this is actually a year old.
PDX Food Dude says
Thanks to those of you who wrote in. I seem to be having an MS moment, because when I double checked, I thought, “these people are wrong, this just happened”. Then I realized this is 2015. Not sure why this appeared in my news feed yesterday. Still it’s an interesting story ;>)
Andrea Smith says
We expect restaurants to uphold a higher ethical standard than our elected officials?
Andrew says
This happened a year ago. Did someone misread the dateline?
PDX Food Dude says
Hopefully I didn’t report this a year ago, or I’ll really be embarrassed.
K Charles says
Yelp is a joke. I quit using the website many months ago when this situation was first brought to light.