{"id":14935,"date":"2013-05-25T11:12:28","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T15:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=14935"},"modified":"2013-05-25T11:33:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-25T15:33:35","slug":"yelp-successfully-sued-in-small-claims-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/25\/yelp-successfully-sued-in-small-claims-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Yelp Successfully Sued in Small Claims Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>According to the Wall Street Journal, a bankruptcy lawyer took Yelp to small claims court in San Diego and won a judgement of $2700.<\/p>\n

….the judge describing Yelp\u2019s advertising contract as \u201cthe modern-day version of the mafia going to stores and saying, \u201cYou wanna not be bothered?\u201d<\/p>\n

The case will be taken to a higher court on appeal.<\/p>\n

The McMillan Law Group, which brought the claim against Yelp, agreed to an advertising deal with the site after it had become \u201ca good source of new clients for us,\u201d said attorney Julian McMillan, representing his firm in the court. \u00a0The deal involved the firm paying Yelp $540 per month in return for 1,200 ad impressions per month on the site. An impression is counted each time an ad is displayed to a user.<\/p>\n

Mr. McMillan claimed Yelp did not deliver the 1,200 monthly impressions, leading to his firm cancelling the contract and asking for its money back. The site\u2019s representative in the court,\u00a0Bradley Bohensky, said the claim was based on a misunderstanding of how such impressions are measured, and that Yelp in fact \u201cover delivered\u201d on the ad impressions promised.<\/p>\n

Several thoughts:
\n-The Wall Street Journal, and to a lesser extent the lawyer making the claim, rehashed the Yelp conspiracy theory of pay to play but this case seems to revolve around the one-sided and coercive nature\u00a0of Yelp’s contract and whether impressions were properly delivered.
\n-Rocky Agrawal has pointed<\/a> out the extremely high pricing of Yelp’s advertising and the often irrelevant impressions<\/a> that they provide. This would seem to me provide another avenue for a small claims court action.
\n-The lawyer bringing the case has clearly understood that winning in small claims court is the best link generating scheme ever conceived of. And it appears that he is still running<\/a> a Yelp deal. Hmm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Wall Street Journal, a bankruptcy lawyer took Yelp to small claims court in San Diego and won a judgement of $2700. ….the judge describing Yelp\u2019s advertising contract as \u201cthe modern-day version of the mafia going to stores and saying, \u201cYou wanna not be bothered?\u201d The case will be taken to a higher …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t