[cschmidt]

I guess that is the underlying issue. Yelp is fundamentally a protection racket. "Those are some real nice reviews you have there - it would be a real shame for something to happen to them." I imagine that there are lots of business owners that would be a security risk. I wonder if Yelp people ask themselves if they might be doing something bad if people want to do them bodily harm.

[pyre]

  > I wonder if Yelp people ask themselves if they
  > might be doing something bad if people want to do
  > them bodily harm.

They don't have to be doing something wrong for people to want to harm them.

[mikeash]

Most of the time, if people want to physically hurt you, you're either doing something really bad, or really good. I don't think Yelp falls into the "really good" category.

[TeMPOraL]

Or you might just be hurting business of bad people. Not every owner of the restaurant is a nice and smart person who can accept negative feedback (aka. bad review) as a sing that he/she needs to change something.

[nnnnnnnn]

But it helps!

[killerswan]

Anyone hated by lots of murderous psycho control-freak business owners is probably doing some good in the world.