Plaintiffs filed a California class action lawsuit in Los
Angeles on October 22, 2013 against Yelp.
Yelp is a website that provides reviews of different businesses around
the world. The plaintiffs are a group of
Yelp reviewers, claiming that they are unpaid writers who are vital to the
company’s existence. In the complaint,
plaintiffs refer to themselves as writers and non-wage paid employees who have
earned Yelp considerable sums of money.
The complaint states, “The practice of classifying employees
as ‘reviewers’ or ‘Yelpers’ or ‘Elites’ or ‘independent contractors’ or
‘interns’ or ‘volunteers’ or ‘contributors’ to avoid paying wages is prohibited
by federal law, which requires employers to pay all workers who provide
material benefit to their employer, at least the minimum wage.” The complaint further alleges that Yelp
motivates its non-wage-paid writers to increase the volume of their production
with incentives in the form of liquor, food, badges, and trinkets.
Lily Jeung, a contributor to Yelp, who was named an “Elite”
reviewer, alleges that in order to maintain her status, she was “often directed
to write more reviews if in Yelp's opinion her production seemed to slack off.” Jeung had written about 1,100 reviews when
Yelp abruptly closed her account. Yelp
sent an email explaining that it had flagged a number of the reviews she wrote
in connection with an investigation of businesses that have tried to pay for
positive reviews, as a result, her account was closed and the decision was
final.
Anyone who reads online reviews knows it is hard to determine
whether an online business review is authentic.
To combat this problem, Yelp has developed a computer algorithm in a
continuous effort to identify and filter out phony reviews. It is this computer algorithm that flagged
some of Jeung’s reviews and closed her account.
It is Jeung’s stance that she was “fired from her position with no
warning, a flimsy explanation, and no opportunity for recourse or appeal
rights.”
Yelp has replied to the allegations by telling Fast Company “The argument that voluntarily using a free service equates to an
employment relationship is completely without merit, unsupported by law and
contradicted by the dozens of websites like Yelp that consumers use to help one
another.”
Yelp’s website success does rely on an active base of
reviewers, however opponents to the lawsuit have liken it to Facebook users
demanding payment for status posts. Nicholas Thompson of the New Yorker told Bloomberg
that the "plaintiffs write so many
reviews -- in some cases more than a thousand each -- for the simple reason
that Yelp is an online community in which they enjoyed participating, not for
the promise of working as a paid writer. 'They did it for the reasons why we all contribute online. We do it
for prestige, we do it to connect with our friends, we do it because we think
we're making the web a better place,' he said."
If the plaintiffs are successful in their lawsuit, this would
change the landscape of online reviewing.