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Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

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Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#11

Post by dclowd9901 »

mkhalil wrote: post #9

"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp Agreed. But let's just say, they win. Would this force sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to go the YouTube route and pay the really popular ones? --well anyone can make money on YouTube, but unless your popular, your not going to make anything significant-- People already do this with sponsored tweets and pics, but it's not Twitter that's actually paying t…

There's not even a point in going down that hypothetical. This is beyond stupid. It would be like suing your favorite restaurant for not paying you for telling everyone how much you like it.

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#12

Post by moomin »

segmondy wrote: post #6
jmduke wrote: post #5

The precedent of such a suit would be staggering; I can't count on two hands the number of major Internet companies that derive the vast-majority of their content from user-generated content. Kinda weird to be fiercely on the side of a company I dislike, but I hope Yelp doesn't have to spend too much money on pointless legal fees here.

You write as if the suit has a chance. The suit has no chance, none, zilch, zero. They were not forced to write the reviews. Imagine me and you suing ycombinator, because our post on HN adds value to the site. How absurd.

I reckon pg needs to pay me for the value I've added to this site.

Not quite sure if I should charge a nickel or a dime.

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#13

Post by codezero »

The only time (as far as I am aware) that a similar lawsuit was successful was when AOL had to pay out $15 million to their moderators.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program

Some key reasons they were able to win were:

  1) they had training
  2) they had supervisors
  3) they had to file reports and meet goals
If they were operating autonomously, or even given some incentives (at the time they were given free AOL which was not a flat rate, so it had significant value), then the risk is low, but some of the things AOL did in running this program put them at risk.

Even with the very specific things AOL did that bit them later, the lawsuit still dragged on for a long time.

Yelp is unlikely to be at any risk at all here unless they were treating these reviewers like employees. Just contributing content is definitely not enough to put them at risk, and if the people are bitter about their contributions they have the right to remove them (I think).

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#14

Post by waterlesscloud »

moomin wrote: post #12
segmondy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as if the suit has a chance. The suit has no chance, none, zilch, zero. They were not forced to write the reviews. Imagine me and you suing ycombinator, because our post on HN adds value to the site. How absurd.

I reckon pg needs to pay me for the value I've added to this site. Not quite sure if I should charge a nickel or a dime.

It's obvious to me that compensation should come in the form of ownership in yc companies, pro-rated based on total karma.

I think tptacek and patio11 will back me up on this.

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#16

Post by thehme »

This suit has no merit. If it did, then every FB, Twitter, Google, Amazon, etc. user would have to start getting paid at sign up. It doesn't make sense. The point of rating/reviewing a service/product is that you want to share the ups and downs with other people, so they make an educated selection. I personally enjoy reading reviews of restaurants and always give a place a chance if there are few unfavorable reviews. I also like writing my own reviews and even though I might have once thought that I should be paid (like a good wine connoisseur) I know that that I would've never reviews anything from the start, if getting paid was the goal.

This blog post reminded my of that one commercial (has anyone see it?), which I find very annoying, about joining someone's list. Perhaps these Yelp users should pay to review as they don't quite deserve the Yelper title.

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#17

Post by Shivetya »

mkhalil wrote: post #9

"...textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit" - Yelp Agreed. But let's just say, they win. Would this force sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to go the YouTube route and pay the really popular ones? --well anyone can make money on YouTube, but unless your popular, your not going to make anything significant-- People already do this with sponsored tweets and pics, but it's not Twitter that's actually paying t…

Well I would never have imagined that people could have sued AOL for volunteering to manage message boards; community leaders. Yet that was investigated by the Department of Labor and settled in 2010.

Does the act of encouraging people to comment on your site, where the services you comment on require investment of your money, somehow incur a debt on part of the review site to the reviewers? What if the review site has a monetary relationship with the sites being reviewed?

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#18

Post by bhahn »

I wish the US legal system would make changes to discourage these types of frivolous lawsuits. It seems like many suits are intended to force the defendant to settle even though the suit itself has no merit.

I wonder if the # of frivolous lawsuits would go decline if the suing party were forced to pay the defendant's legal fees if the suing party lost.

Re: Yelp reviewers claim to be employees in lawsuit

#19

Post by lifeformed »

jmduke wrote: post #5

The precedent of such a suit would be staggering; I can't count on two hands the number of major Internet companies that derive the vast-majority of their content from user-generated content. Kinda weird to be fiercely on the side of a company I dislike, but I hope Yelp doesn't have to spend too much money on pointless legal fees here.

And to think I've been making all those Reddit memes for free!
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