Of course there can be evidence. The changed-algorithm claims merely create a slightly higher bar for the evidence to be convincing. So far, no one seems to have presented evidence that even approaches credible, all we see are unsupported claims. People have sued Yelp for these alleged extortions, and they lose due to lack of evidence to back their claims. Example: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yelp-ratings-20140905-...

Consider the math: If all businesses with positive ratings on Yelp were paying Yelp for that privilege, Yelp would be the wealthiest company on the planet. By far. Also, if this extortion were true, we'd be hearing about it from thousands of businesses, not one or two here and there.

Consider the Occam: If the public's apparent perception of a business takes a dive, is it more likely that a) one company (Yelp) has been secretly, systematically extorting businesses all over the world for over a decade without being caught red-handed; or b) something happened in the business or the market that had a negative impact on the business?

If I'm a business, should I increase the likelihood that the public gives me bad reviews on yelp when I bring attention to this issue?

>Consider the Occam: [...]

That's a false dilemma. Yelp can push sales quotas upon employees without "knowing" that it's inducing them to post negative (and positive [for those who pay]) reviews. Just because they're not explicitly telling their employees to post negative/positive reviews doesn't mean that they don't do so through other means.

Your either-or is the standard Yelp talking point.

>without being caught red-handed

Because their employees are using Yelp's whistle blowing line.

How/why would customers give you more bad reviews if you could prove your business has received fraudulent bad reviews on Yelp? Those dots don't seem to sensibly connect.

> Yelp can push sales quotas upon employees without "knowing" that it's inducing them to post negative (and positive [for those who pay]) reviews. Just because they're not explicitly telling their employees to post negative/positive reviews doesn't mean that they don't do so through other means.

This is a good hypothesis for how it could happen; this is essentially what happened at Wells Fargo. But there's still the pesky lack of evidence for it actually happening at Yelp, where the evidence for it happening at Wells Fargo is considerable--loads of employees and ex-employees discussing it openly, tons of customer records showing accounts opened without permission, etc. That is a key difference that suggests the Yelp accusations are without much merit.

It's a foregone conclusion that some Yelp employees have done manipulative things to customers over the years, and maybe it's those isolated events that spur these occasional complaints, but there's no evidence of a widespread, systemic problem. If such credible evidence materializes, I will change my view, but I'll not apologize for waiting to accept the story until compelling evidence appeared. A tiny percentage of businesses making uncorroborated claims is an absurdly low standard for evidence.

> Because their employees are using Yelp's whistle blowing line.

This is another bare assertion without supporting evidence. If this were the case, where are all of the exposés from former Yelp employees who were pressured to do the extorting?

I probably ought not have engaged in this discussion, because I have no dog in this hunt. I should have remembered that if someone has arrived at a hard conclusion without evidence, then that is a demonstration that evidence is not important to them. I just get so exasperated when I see my peers accepting a stranger's story wholesale without a crumb of evidence. So it goes.