Can Yelp Be Considered As A Device For Blackmail?

Hey Writing for New Media Class Members, I don’t know how many of you read the article about the website Yelp but does this story really surprise you? This scam is like everything else in the world right now everyone is out for themselves and themselves alone. I bet all of you heard about mechanics that a person takes their car in for an oil change and the next thing you know the bill ends up being for new tires, shocks, muffler, excreta, or people looking at insurance statements after an operation and finding they have paid doctors they have never, ever heard of, why should the website world be different?

A review page that can be found on Yelp

Yelp sounds like a scam

Yelp wants to earn an extra buck like all of us in this day and age. Does that make it right? Not really, but the use of the word Mafia might be a little extreme but then again maybe not. For example, a person has a company that needs to get more business, so they advertise on what they think is a reputable website. Then they find the advertising is negative instead of positive and unless they buy more advertising it won’t be changed. I guess that could almost be blackmail.

An ad that can be found on an actual web page

What needs to be done about Yelp

Based on this observation that Yelp could potentially be a device for blackmail there definitely needs to be some guidelines for the Internet that all its users such as yourselves need to follow. Unfortunately, it all comes down to one person like Geoff Donaker, Chief Operating Officer of Yelp to ruin it for everyone else. He is quoted as saying “We wouldn’t be a business very long if we started duping customers.” Well it is my understanding that nine local businesses and a former employee are challenging his denials. I would say it is only a matter of time that his duping customers will be well known. Many say the best advertisement is word of mouth. If that is the case, if each of those ten people plus our class tells everyone we know, Mr. Donaker will be right in saying he won’t have a business.

Geoff Donaker, a New Media Criminal?

How credibility plays a part

As for our credibility I guess like good mechanics or good insurance companies those of us in our New Media Class need to start relying on word of mouth. If all of us learn to write what we believe is the truth and have backing to prove our findings based on what we have learned in our class, it will only take time until we have supporters that will believe and follow us. Credibility takes many years of hard work or in our case hours of writing blog posts or creating media in our own individual fields to prove we are credible in what we know and what we are saying. Based on this statement the best advice I can give all of you in our class do not give up and most importantly don’t lower yourself to Mr. Donaker’s standards. Hard work and truth will win out in the end or we have to hope so anyway.