Yelp has made a mess in San Francisco. The S.F. Chronicle ran a piece about the imperious way that Yelp has been removing business listings because other businesses have written positive referrals.
Sheer stupidity. Small business people appreciate other small businesses more than ordinary people and they understand the value of recommendations, so they help each other. That is honesty that only a bureaucratic incompetent could fail to recognize.
Most Internet companies are started and run by managerial incompetents. You only learn management by working for a good manager and these bimbos have never had a job before.
According to the S.F. Chronicle a law suit is on the way, but that is irrelevant. Thousands of people sued Pay Pal for the same type of business malpractice and it had no effect. The suits take too long, only the lawyers make money and Peter Thiel and his crooked partners sold the company to eBay for $billions long before the lawsuit got to court.
Yelp has plenty of money and will not waste time responding to a law suit.
The best strategy for the small businesses involved is get together and agree to have each person and their friends send a comment to every blog, every website, that could possibly be relevant to the subject of Yelp.
Not only will that keep a big staff at Yelp busy, it will cost Yelp money and will destroy their reputation in less than three months.