[brianjyee]

The article says she asked her customers to post genuine reviews. I don't know if that's true but if it is, I see nothing shady about asking your customers to post reviews. There is definitely a conflict of interest on Yelp's side, but I don't see a good solution to the spam problem.

[tptacek]

Both things can be true: that Yelp has and exploits a conflict of interest, and that this article chose a pretty bad example of a business harmed by that practice.

[qdpb]

Yelp specifically mentions that this would lead to blacklisting of comments in their help, for the reasons of resulting bias (you only ask customers who are happy, you might provide a discount or preferential treatment etc).