“What are things that do not mix?” Ads and Reviews, Oil and water?
“Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer reviews of their businesses on its web site … for a price.”
What? I used to be a fan of Yelp. If this is true, they are dead to me. If by advertising with Yelp you can cleanse or bury the bad reviews, they have sold out all their readers.
Is this a case of one or 2 rogue sales people or is it sanctioned practice across the board?
In either case it brings up some interesting questions.
Even if this is not a Yelp policy, but the unsanctioned actions of one unscrupulous sales person, doesn’t the business model of selling advertising on a peer/user review site just cry out for this kind of tampering?
It appears there is an inherent conflict of interest when the advertising from the businesses is combined with that business user reviews. It seems like a bad recipe, that can give you an indigestion (pun intended), but how is an Internet business to make a “living” if selling advertising potentially undermines it’s integrity and primary beneficiaries of the service, the consumers are expecting not to pay for it?
There is another interesting question – is it ethical for Yelp, or any other Customer Reviews organization, employees to review a business? After all they are the consumers too, and have a right and interest to express their experiences. On the other hand what we, the consumer public, value most - is the unbiased opinions of people like ourselves, that have nothing to gain or lose by posting their reviews and sharing their experiences.
Which brings us back to how do providers of consumer reviews “get paid’ in a world where users can find free reviews?
Is it worth it to you to pay for the service for totally unbiased reviews?
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I heard that sites like Expedia have deals (similar to a grocery store) where travel providers pay to be one of their top 5 search returns – whether their prices are more competitive or not. Supposedly Kayak doesn’t do that. The smoke and mirrors approach to providing consumer information will not work long term.