I worked directly on the code that would have done the things you're asserting to be true. There's no code to support it, and in fact, there are tools in place to prevent what you're claiming.
If there were some top-secret internal conspiracy to use the other tools on the site to do what you're claiming, you have to be especially credulous to believe that I -- or people just like me -- wouldn't have noticed it.
Unless you have some evidence to bring to the table other than "I read it on the internet", my word is worth more than your theories.
If you don't believe that what I'm telling you is true, then feel free to provide some proof.
The typical criticism of Yelp was that you could get negative reviews of your business removed if you paid them.
I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case.
I'm not sure how otherwise skeptical techy people imagine a conspiracy into reality with nothing to back it up. Don't you think that of the thousands of people who have worked at yelp, that one of them would have spread news about it with their peers?
The "shakedowns", floods of negative reviews, sudden filtering, etc. Every single instance is some anecdotal story online, and has never been backed up in court, by investigative journalism, a scientific study, any kind of material evidence.
The barrier to entry to create a business listing, get reviews, get a sales call from yelp, and study the change in review is really, really low -- and yet you'd think we'd have more proof to go on than comments on hackernews and reddit if yelp were as shady as is claimed.
There are third party services that are effectively shakedowns -- similar to what shady SEO people do to spam whois contacts -- they threaten you with worse rankings if you don't pay up. These things have no connection to yelp itself.
There are multiple accounts in the same results page, and even in this very page:
> Yelp is utter trash. They've shaken down several friends of mine who own and run restaurants. Either you pay for their premium services or a bunch of 1 star reviews start magically appearing on your business Its a well known racket and they should be run out of town on a rail for it.
> After I received my first positive review on the site they called me and tried selling me all kinds of advertising. Hundreds of dollars per month worth. I declined, and around the same time my review went from being on my business page to being buried behind a "View Reviews that are not recommended" link.
Etc, etc. This seems like evidence. Or are all these people lying? Why is everyone slandering poor innocent Yelp then?
They’re not lying, they’re just attributing a sales call as a cause to some effect they only started paying attention to after the call, or they do get shaken down by a third party who targets them. Try registering a domain, your phone number on the Whois info, and the search rank shakedowns from scummy SEO services will start rolling in, calling themselves variations of “Google Search Advisors” threatening your site’s placement unless you pay. Some folks actually believe these calls are from google, and I’d expect people who own restaurants are targeted similarly, are much less techie and much less accustomed to these scams.
Then there’s also the effect of people not paying attention to their ratings in an objective way and immediately after the call start attributing any event that follows to the call.
And then of course there are folks who get a sales call after their first few reviews, as their business is picking up, and as that volume picks up some more critical folks show up and organically give negative reviews.
I don’t consider a blog post about someone who’s relaying something they say they heard from their friends to be evidence. I’d believe it if they collected data both before and after the call in an objective and consistent way.
They're not lying, they believe it's happening. That doesn't mean it is, however. Chances are they're seeing things that can be explained in other ways.
People who say they've seen bigfoot aren't lying when they genuinely believe they've seen bigfoot. That doesn't mean bigfoot exists.
If Yelp actually did shake people down like that, there would very likely be concrete proof by now (recorded phone calls, documents, emails, undercover journalism, whistleblower employees). Just as there would be concrete proof of bigfoot by now.
"I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case."
I don't need to prove a negative. You need to prove your claim.
There's no evidence of what you're arguing, anywhere, and I'm telling you that the code didn't have any ability to support it. If there were some system to allow advertisers to influence reviews, I would have known about it. Moreover, if there were some top-secret, non-code mechanism to do it, I would have seen it in the data.
I have never seen any such thing.
On top of all of that, if it were really true that you could get your business' negative reviews removed, there would be ample evidence of this. By definition, it's not something Yelp could hide.
There are multiple accounts in the same results page, and even in this very page:
> Yelp is utter trash. They've shaken down several friends of mine who own and run restaurants. Either you pay for their premium services or a bunch of 1 star reviews start magically appearing on your business Its a well known racket and they should be run out of town on a rail for it.
> After I received my first positive review on the site they called me and tried selling me all kinds of advertising. Hundreds of dollars per month worth. I declined, and around the same time my review went from being on my business page to being buried behind a "View Reviews that are not recommended" link.
Etc, etc. This seems like evidence. Or are all these people lying? Why is everyone slandering poor innocent Yelp then?
Source: I worked there, on the systems in question, and know for a fact that the things you're asserting are not true.