Yelp Lawsuit | Popular Review Site

What is Yelp?

Yelp is a user based website that allows consumers the opportunity to write a personal experience with a business. Whether this review is good or bad, it gets published. The idea being, that other users interested in the goods or services of a business, have a place to go to hear about past customer's personal experiences and feelings about that business.

According to their website, Yelp was founded in 2004. Their number one item in their 10 Things you should know about Yelp section is: "Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people find great local businesses like dentists, hair stylists and mechanics." In another section of the website, the company is described as: "Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on the informed opinions of a vibrant and active community of locals in the know. Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great — and not so great — in your world."

The Yelp Lawsuit

Why is Yelp involved in a lawsuit? According to Fox News, a suit was filed against the San Francisco-based Yelp website for fraudulent reviews. A lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday, with allegations pertaining to extortion.

The extortion claim is that when Yelp gets a negative review for a business, they then contact that business and inform them that a negative review has been posted. The business owner then is given a chance to purchase an "advertising package" for several hundred dollars, where the website will remove the negative review, and give the business some ad space on the website. On some occasions, it is said that employees of the website will also write negative reviews themselves!