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Merchants angry over getting yanked by Yelp
Ellen Lee,Anastasia Ustinova, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, July 4, 2008
Four years ago, Geri Rebstock started using Yelp, a popular site for consumers to review local businesses and services. She critiqued her favorite veterinarian, a neighborhood print shop and an acupuncturist who took care of her bad wrist.
But Rebstock's reviews and personal account vanished from the site recently after Yelp accused Rebstock, who owns a small interior decorating business called Geraldine Rebstock Interior Design, of trading glowing reviews with other business owners.
"It's Orwellian," Rebstock said. "I had reviews of my business from several years back and they kind of erased my identity.
"It's frustrating that they are being mean-spirited," she said. "Our business pages still appear, but one another's reviews have been removed."
Last week, Yelp purged an undisclosed number of accounts after finding that the business owners had swapped positive reviews with other business owners. Yelp also regularly deletes reviews it believes are phony. The move sparked an outcry among local businesses, and has even led some entrepreneurs to band together with thoughts of a class-action lawsuit. Their reasoning is, if they legitimately spend their money and patronize a service, why can't they review it?
The outrage underscores Yelp's increasing influence as more people browse the site before deciding where to dine, shop and spend their time and money. And it highlights the balance the growing startup is trying to strike as it continues to nurture its community while also meeting the needs of local businesses and earning money from advertising.
Founded in 2004 in San Francisco, Yelp has expanded to 18 metropolitan areas and now reaches more than 11.5 million people a month. More than 3 million reviews appear on the site. At its core is a community of everyday consumers guiding each other to the best a region has to offer, from the hippest bar to the most well-stocked baby store.
Its growing popularity, however, means that some users have tried to game the system, much as some people have sought to use certain tactics to try to get their site to the top of a Google search result. It's a practice that Yelp continues to try to stamp out, said Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.
"When we see local businesses trying to exchange reviews, quid pro quo, it violates the spirit of Yelp," he said. "When a reader comes to Yelp looking to patronize a business and spend their hard-earned money, the reviews should be from customers who have found that business on their own volition."
Used for networking
Some business owners feel differently. Joyce Van Horn, an astrologer in San Francisco at Partners in Healing, said that through a networking group, she met and tried a personal trainer and an acupuncturist. Likewise, others in the group have discovered and used her services as an astrologer. She said she didn't realize that practice broke Yelp rules.
"The fact of the matter is every person I reviewed, I had used their services and every person who reviewed me used my services," she said.
In some cases, she added, she even wrote a negative review or didn't post one at all because she had a bad experience. "I don't think that's gaming at all," she said. "I believe in ethics."
On Friday, Van Horn received a message that her personal account - and her 32 reviews - had been deleted. She also found that some of the reviews for her business had been removed.
Adryenn Ashley, a publicity and marketing specialist from Mill Valley whose account was also deleted, decided to fight back. On Wednesday she created Yelp-Sucks.com and YelpLawsuit.com, asking people "yanked by Yelp" to sign up for a class-action suit. Less than 24 hours later, she had 25 signatures. Ashley said she understands Yelp's intent to serve its community, but felt she had been caught up as collateral damage.
"The class-action suit is not about the money," Ashley said. "I want an apology and I want my URL back."
Stoppelman said Yelp carefully made the decision to delete the selected accounts. The move was necessary to maintain Yelp's integrity, Stoppelman said. "If you're the consumer and about to spend $90 on a massage, are those the reviews you want to read?" he said. "Trust is our oxygen."
Becoming widespread
Yelp isn't the only site that faces this dilemma. More consumers are turning to each other for reviews and feedback, from travel sites such as TripAdvisor to retailer Amazon.com.
"This happens in Wikipedia, in online forums, on any social site where money is involved," said Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst for Forrester Research. If Yelp doesn't enforce its rules, "it will lose credibility and trust and less people will use it."
Yelp also routinely removes reviews it believes are spam. Sometimes that means legitimate posts are also deleted.
Lawyers with Goldstein, Gellman, Melbostad, Gibson & Harris LLP said they were dismayed to find that Yelp flagged most of the positive reviews of their law firm as untrustworthy, because they were written by first-time users. As a result, the Web site blocked 11 positive reviews, leaving a couple of unflattering comments.
"Our complaint is that the average person looking at it would not know about it," said David Gellman, managing partner at the firm. "Our business is very reputation-based, and we know more and more that our clients find us on the Internet."
That's not to say that businesses are powerless. In late April, Yelp introduced "Yelp for Business Owners," a free service that lets owners claim their business on the site, be part of the Yelp community and reach out to their customers. In some cases, businesses have used the opportunity to thank their customers; others have reached out to critics for a second chance and have been rewarded for it.
"If you are a great local business, you will do great on Yelp," Stoppelman said. "Consumers win and businesses win. That's the way it should be."
