• Their P.R. site, strangely enough, doesn’t allow comments. Recently, local business review site Yelp, while quite popular, has faced criticism over the way it works with the local businesses it indexes, including rumors that the site purposely favors advertisers. Recently, Yelp’s blog has been on the defensive. It culminated today with a tart-tongued post which clearly hadn’t been looked over by a lawyer, because it makes allegations that might annoy those suing the company. (Lawyers want a piece of us ’cause we got some venture capital!) Here’s a sample:

• February 26: Conspiracy? “The allegations are disappointing, not only because they are false, but because they ignore empirical evidence in favor of conspiracy theories.” source
• March 1: We’re weird “We’ll be the first to admit that, by conventional standards, Yelp can seem weird. We’re different than other review sites and that can throw people off.” source
• March 4: Rawr “So it’s no surprise that today another lawyer has filed a virtually identical lawsuit making the same inaccurate claims. (Don’t worry; they’re still not true.)” source

Posted by Ernie Smith • Permalink