{"id":81,"date":"2010-02-12T04:58:05","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T04:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/?p=81"},"modified":"2011-03-19T05:00:22","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T05:00:22","slug":"when-wisdom-of-the-crowd-gets-manipulated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/2010\/02\/when-wisdom-of-the-crowd-gets-manipulated\/","title":{"rendered":"When Wisdom of the Crowd gets manipulated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>When &#8220;Wisdom of the Crowds &#8221; gets manipulated<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>YELP!, you&#8217;re in deep trouble. There&#8217;s growing momentum for a class-action          lawsuit against the review website. And Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman          is  dismissive of complaints. It adds up to a major blow for          hubris.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an <strong>extortion          scheme<\/strong> in which the          company\u2019s employees call businesses <strong>demanding monthly             payments<\/strong>, in the          guise of \u201cadvertising contracts,\u201d in exchange for removing or modifying          negative reviews appearing on the website. The plaintiff, a veterinary          hospital in Long Beach, California, asked that Yelp remove a false and          defamatory review from the website. In response, as set forth in the          lawsuit, Yelp refused to take down the review. Instead, the company\u2019s          sales representatives repeatedly contacted the hospital and demanded          a roughly $300 per-month payment in exchange for hiding or removing          the negative review. Similar examples of Yelp\u2019s unscrupulous sales practices          have been widely documented in the press, including in The Wall Street          Journal, The San Jose Mercury, and a series of articles recently appearing          in The East Bay Express.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/yelpclassaction.wordpress.com\/2010\/02\/23\/yelplawsuit\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/yelpclassaction.wordpress.com\/2010\/02\/23\/yelplawsuit\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>and read more at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/magazine\/content\/10_11\/b4170027355708.htm\" target=\"_blank\">BusinessWeek<\/a>.          The article quotes how &#8220;Yelp&#8217;s revenue comes from restaurants, hotels,          and other businesses that typically pay $300 a month to advertise on          the site, which 25 million people visit each month, according to research          service Compete. It&#8217;s a promising model.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is why our <a href=\"http:\/\/grapemojo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">GrapeMojo.com<\/a> will          never sell ads on its website \u2014 if the subjects of your content (wine          lovers, makers and sellers, in our case) are also its primary source          of advertising, the conflicts of interest are bound to appear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When &#8220;Wisdom of the Crowds &#8221; gets manipulated YELP!, you&#8217;re in deep trouble. There&#8217;s growing momentum for a class-action lawsuit against the review website. And Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman is dismissive of complaints. It adds up to a major blow for hubris. The lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company\u2019s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/2010\/02\/when-wisdom-of-the-crowd-gets-manipulated\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;When Wisdom of the Crowd gets manipulated&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","category-social-media","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p415hC-1j","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}