Yelp names and shames businesses paying for 5-star reviews (arstechnica.com)
from Madison_rogue@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.ml on 23 Sep 2023 00:07
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.ml/t/479945

Yelp has started publicly naming and shaming businesses that pay for reviews. The review site’s new index documents businesses offering everything from a crisp $100 bill for leaving the best review to a $400 Home Depot gift card for a five-star review. It also lists every business whose reviews have ever been suspected of suspicious activity, like spamming the site with multiple reviews from a single IP address.

#technology

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calabast@lemm.ee on 23 Sep 2023 00:22 next collapse

Do they also notify users that they are the largest score manipulator by far of their data? And that they do so to bully small businesses to pay up or they will ruin them?

neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space on 23 Sep 2023 00:29 next collapse

Of course not.

Madison_rogue@kbin.social on 23 Sep 2023 04:03 collapse

So is it any wonder that a business would hire fake reviewers to increase their Yelp score, when Yelp holds these businesses hostage with their outrageous policies for bad reviews? Those reviews can make or break a small business. I'm not exactly sympathetic with hiring fake reviewers, yet I'm not sympathetic AT ALL with Yelp's business model.

Yelp needs to change how it vets reviews, and have better handling of a business' response and deletion of irresponsible patron reviews.

Brokkr@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 00:23 next collapse

Doesn’t yelp let businesses erase poor reviews for a fee? Is the only difference here that yelp isn’t getting paid?

wander1236@sh.itjust.works on 23 Sep 2023 00:25 next collapse

Probably

lolrightythen@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 00:40 next collapse

Yeah! Of course I didn’t click the link, but 3rd party delivery businesses are rarely more than rent-seekers. Hating on one of their restaurant clients is bad for their bad business.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2d704aa5-ab54-4598-830d-8fa2ab7115fc.jpeg">

*Yelp isn’t a delivery service, my b. Statement stands in a smaller context.

clearedtoland@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 00:42 collapse

So, like Unity, they just want to increase their share?

IzzyData@lemmy.ml on 23 Sep 2023 00:33 next collapse

Pretty much. They aren’t a trusted intermediary at all.

Iwasondigg@lemmy.one on 23 Sep 2023 01:45 collapse

Yelp used to approach businesses with proposals to to that, yes. Had a friend with a small business years ago and he would get called by Yelp constantly trying to get him to pay to improve his reviews. It’s so shady.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 23 Sep 2023 04:22 next collapse

That’s why it’s ironic, for a long time they basically ran a small business extortion arm for any business to consumer business. A family member had the nightmare of dealing with people coming to his house, because that’s what the address was and it sounded like a retail business. The bank brought up his negative yelp reviews and he had to explain how he wasn’t going to pay them $5k to delete reviews that they caused in the first place by missclasifying his business space. No customers were or would ever be served there.

It’s like if you had a family peach canning business that grew really large. You no longer can your awesome peaches there, because you have canning facilities that you work with. But Yelp refuses to delist your business and then you have to fight with them for years about negative reviews of your peach place, that no one has actually been to but somehow has a lot of weird ideas of how to better the experience… And when you fight them they say the only solution is to pay them a fee that they calculated out of their butt to the tune of 1-5k.

money_loo@1337lemmy.com on 23 Sep 2023 21:32 collapse

Yelp does not do that, those are scammers.

Gingerlegs@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 00:40 next collapse

Pot calls kettle black

iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.org on 23 Sep 2023 00:46 collapse

“More at six…”

YeezyUmplebutter@sh.itjust.works on 23 Sep 2023 01:00 next collapse

Fuck yelp

Dick_Justice@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 01:09 next collapse

Yelp is a failed experiment. Let it die.

thefartographer@lemm.ee on 23 Sep 2023 01:45 collapse

⭐️ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Dick_Justice is an asshole

We realize negative comments can disproportionately affect newer Lemmy users like you. For a small fee and a big apology, we’d be happy to make sure these most-likely unjust reviews do not impact your overall rating. We’d sure hate for this one-star review to accidentally end up as the top review for such a nice user as yourself.

Chozo@kbin.social on 23 Sep 2023 01:31 next collapse

Yelp is just the BBB for millennials. Fuck both of these extortionist organizations.

Num10ck@lemmy.world on 23 Sep 2023 15:24 collapse

how could we build a federated open replacement for B2C reviews and ratings without getting it corrupted?

neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space on 23 Sep 2023 21:08 next collapse

One step that could help would be to require proof that you actually went to $location

mycelium_underground@lemmy.world on 24 Sep 2023 03:16 collapse

With code and algorithms

Drusas@kbin.social on 23 Sep 2023 02:22 next collapse

Only a couple of decades too late.

llama@midwest.social on 23 Sep 2023 02:39 next collapse

Can someone name and shame yelp for automatically generating pages for business listings that don’t exist like TOP 10 BEST CANTONESE FUSION RESTAURANTS IN HARPERS FERRY.

Madison_rogue@kbin.social on 23 Sep 2023 03:58 collapse

Are there even 10 restaurants in Harper's Ferry?

ThatHermanoGuy@midwest.social on 24 Sep 2023 01:57 next collapse

lol, like anyone would ever trust Yelp again. How are they even still in business?

glitch1985@lemmy.world on 24 Sep 2023 18:06 collapse

Boomers. Same as BBB.

Trebach@kbin.social on 24 Sep 2023 17:46 collapse

Yelp names their own competitors in the "extorting businesses for good reviews" racket.