Yelp jumps across the pond

User-generated business reviews site Yelp has officially launched a U.K. edition, meaning that no business in England, Scotland, or Wales is safe any longer from the wrath of notoriously opinionated Yelpers.

Yelp had already gained a following in the U.K., the company said, because travelers bound for the U.S. use it to look up hotels, restaurants, bars, and the like. More than 100,000 of its visitors in the past month came from the U.K.

San Francisco-based Yelp, which accepts reviews of any business in the U.S. but also clusters businesses into subdirectories by city, quietly expanded to Canada several months ago. The company raised a fresh $15 million in funding early last year.

But the site's free-for-all, say-what-you-want nature may be under scrutiny: a Yelp reviewer was recently sued over a negative review of a chiropractor. If the lawsuit is successful, Yelp may have to crack down on particularly colorful reviews -- the content that has made it stand out from other business reviews sites.

[bethesdafrog]

i do believe that we shall see a trend towards more protection and regulation surrounding one's web persona, social capital and the content one publishes on social networks. whether legally, or brought by a combination of technology solutions and community enforcement to provide more transparency and accountability. it is bound to happen, and is part of what i would call a redefinition of ownership on the social web. one does own one's web persona and social content but it can be wrested away through disparaging comments very easily. how to control that process while balancing freedom of speech will become key in the not so distant future.

other than that, i cannot wait for yelp to come to france.

[humanssssss]

Yelp pays people to write bad reviews so they can charge local merchant to remove them. I had a friend who was contacted by Yelp sales person to inform that a customer has made a review about his store. He went and check to see a bad review and wasn't so happy. He contacted Yelp to ask them how to get it remove. Yelp offers him advertising stuff and tell him his good review will be shown. He bought in for 1 months, then he wasn't getting any more business from Yelp, so he decided to stop paying Yelp. The bad review showed up and he gets less business than he would originally had.

Yelp is manipulating the presentation of reviews and paying reviewers to review to get business. Quite unethical.

[JStopp]

Preposterous. We have thousands of satisfied paying clients and you'll find the full spectrum of reviews on their respective Yelp pages including negative reviews (as with any non-sponsoring business). You cannot pay to remove reviews (see our FAQ: www.yelp.com/faq for complete disclosure of how/when reviews may be removed). -Jeremy (Yelp CEO)

[MisterFarthing]

Yelp is now becoming the Google of establishment reviews. But how does everyone feel about trudging through pages and pages of review for a small town pizza joint? It makes sense for them to push over seas especially into the English speaking countries, I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. But the question of their ethics doesn't surprise me especially built upon their business model.

Yelp exists for all those people who enjoy sharing their personal opinions about their particular experiences whether good or bad. But how does this help the business for better or worse? For the mom and pop shop how do they break the mold and find their way at the top of the searches without paying Yelp money to trump places like Starbucks etc.

Now, Indylist.org was built to help encourage the idea of community and praises the independent establishments. I know that their a small company now but I foresee them having a bit more class than Yelp does when it comes to business.