Popular social-review site Yelp is in court once again over alleged extortion and review manipulating now that a group of business owners is attempting to appeal a ruling that was dismissed in federal court two years ago.
In 2011, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Yelp was protected under the Communications Decency Act from accusations of offering to highlight positive reviews and hide negative ones in exchange for paid advertising because Yelp is not responsible for content written by its users. But now, in an appeal filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, plaintiffs argue that the law does not protect companies that "manipulate reviews for their own profit."
"At the point and time that [the merchants] refused to continue to pay for advertising the good reviews were stripped," said attorney Larry Murray, who represents the business owners. "There seems to be a one-to-one correlation between money and having a good rating and it has nothing to do with the truth."
Murray also accused Yelp of lying about user-generated reviews and skewing their rating system. "Yelp lies about these being consumer views," he said. "They're Yelp manufactured and Yelp tilts the scale however they want."
Read more:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227389...
Posted By: Stan Ivaciov
Sunday, July 14th 2013 at 3:30PM
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