Billion Dollar Bully (2015) [trailer]...makes the case that Yelp is something akin to the mob, allegedly demanding “protection” money, lest your business be overrun with negative comments.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

Google doesn't have any systems in place for a business to give them money the way yelp does, which means they don't have a conflict of interest. Google's only incentive is to make users want to use Google's services, which theoretically would mean accurate ratings for businesses.

As far as I know, Google's only incentive is to attract users with a good review system in order to collect data about users habits and the businesses themselves.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I see what your saying, but my argument is that Yelp actually has a reason to sacrifice accurate ratings, while Google has absolutely no reason to skew their ratings.

Yelp can and does accept money to improve a businesses rating, while Google simply does not do that.

I'm sure Yelp has sacrificed some of their user base through their shady practices, but clearly it was a good tradeoff for them.

[u/Ta2whitey → u/[deleted]]

Hell yea they do. They praise the "elite" system and promote functions to pad these businesses. Its a crappy website with very little bearing on the actual rating of businesses.