![]() ![]() And the previous week, two law firms, Beck & Lee from Miami and The Weston Firm in San Diego, filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court alleging unfair business practices by local business review and rating website operator Yelp. Two weeks ago, the company got slapped by a lawsuit from from the D’ames Day Spa of San Diego County, accusing Yelp of removing many positive reviews because the spa declined to run ads on the site. Levitt claims that ten out of eleven five star reviews were removed from his company’s page following his decision not to purchase advertising on Yelp. The business claims that after declining a request to purchase advertising on Yelp, a number of positive reviews from his business’ listing on the reviews site mysteriously disappeared, downgrading the company’s rating on the site. Levitt’s suit is similar to the previous claims that Yelp is extorting businesses for advertising. Similar to the previous complaints, this lawsuit filed by Boris Levitt, the owner of Renaissance Furniture Restoration in San Francisco, claims that Yelp’s “unfair and unethical conduct in promoting, marketing and advertising its website as maintaining unbiased reviews” is unlawful and hurt his business. And authoring fake Yelp reviews has definitely been a killing stroke in other civil cases.Yelp has been hit with another lawsuit, the third in a matter of a few weeks. However, the court left open the idea that business owners could sue if they could prove that Yelp actually authored fake negative reviews. With this case dismissed, it would seem that suing Yelp over reviews may not be a smart move. It's also good to remember that these businesses had no contractual or pre-existing right to have good reviews on Yelp. In fact, Yelp retains the right to decide whether any particular review or even reviewer will appear on the site, regardless of ad opportunities.Ĭalifornia's Unfair Competition Law prevents " any unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising." These California businesses claimed that Yelp violated this law by acting unlawfully by extorting their businesses for ad revenue.īut extortion requires a wrongful threat of harm, and the 9th Circuit didn't buy that Yelp was in the wrong when it manipulated user reviews. ![]() While threatening to pull reviews may be sleazy, "threatening economic harm to induce a person to pay for a legitimate service is not extortion," the court explained. Yelp! Inc., the 9th Circuit determined that although Yelp denied allegations that it had removed positive ratings to strong-arm the business owners into buying ads, it wouldn't have been illegal even if they had. Circuit Court of Appeals, which unanimously agreed that the case was properly dismissed. The business owners appealed their extortion and California law claims to the 9th U.S. ![]() This Yelp extortion case had initially been heard in San Francisco federal court and had been dismissed for failure to state a proper claim. Why did their Yelp extortion suit flop in federal court? Manipulating Reviews Not Extortion The business owners claimed that Yelp manipulated the appearance of positive or negative reviews in order to pressure the employers into purchasing advertising through its site. A handful of California business owners were dealt a legal loss in federal court this week on their class-action Yelp extortion lawsuit.Ī veterinary hospital, a dentist, an auto-body shop owner, and a furniture restoration store owner had joined in a class action suit against Yelp, claiming the online service had violated California's unfair business practices law and had extorted them, reports Courthouse News Service. ![]()
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