Dear Yelp,<\/span> Your policies are outrageous. You should definitely think long and hard if this is how you want to treat your customers as very soon you will have none.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Then why write a review at all?<\/span><\/p>\n The removal of so many negative “reviews” – opinions from teh internetz more correctly – calls into question Yelp.com’s ability to actually field reviews good or bad in any fashion at all. \u00a0Surely the system would reject “reviews” unless the stay date was indicated – oh, I guess not. \u00a0Gee, I guess anyone could pad the profile of any business any way they like….hmmm…..<\/span>![\"l.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/l.jpg.png\")
<\/a>I spent a considerable amount of time researching their claim that it was a joke and posted my findings only to have yelp remove it along with 900+ other reviews. In my post, I provided a timeline from\u00a0<\/span>archive.org<\/a>\u00a0that clearly laid out when they posted the policy (december 2012) on their site, each (multiple times in 2013) revision to the page that contained the policy as well as the final revision (two edits \u00a0yesterday) where they removed the verbiage.<\/span>
It clearly was not a joke and was absolutely intentional. Damn shame I didn’t copy the post as it would have been a helluva lot easier to post again. For shits and giggles, I’ll attach the email I received from yelp.<\/span>
Censorship at its best… Douche’s<\/span><\/p>\n\n
For removing my review and sending a message I could not reply to I’ve decided to break up with you. I was $500 in hand ready to put our deposit down for our wedding at USH! Why?!?!?<\/span>
I am so over your over-controlling, abusive ways. You never listen to me even when I try to add a post or sometimes help you update restaurant. You are so insensitive to the feelings of others.<\/span>
Also I want you to know I met someone on this website. Urban spoon and I are going to try it out for a while to see how things go. Who knows if \u00a0lucky I’ll get a little on google places too?<\/span>
Bye, it was fun while it lasted!<\/span><\/p>\n\n
For Yelp to remove the negative reviews shows that the whole idea of reviews is controlled. Good or Bad reviews are subject to removal?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
No wonder\u00a0<\/span>Yelp.com<\/a>\u00a0puts so much effort into arguing for their credibility.<\/span><\/p>\n