Yelp
Directory service and online review forum
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April 2024 | Yelp released Yelp Assistant, an AI chatbot to help users find professionals, and introduced an API for developers to search Yelp data. |
June 1 2023 | Yelp closed its offices in Phoenix, Arizona and Hamburg, Germany due to low utilization, following previous closures of New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. offices. |
April 2023 | Yelp introduced Yelp Guaranteed, offering up to $2,500 refund, improved search features with AI, and added video review option. |
April 2022 | Vice published an article exposing how some Yelp Elite reviewers were misusing their status to sell reviews, raising concerns about the platform's review integrity. |
September 2021 | Yelp announced relocation of its corporate headquarters to a smaller space at 350 Mission Street, to be subleased from Salesforce. |
August 2021 | Yelp added a feature to filter businesses based on their COVID precautions. |
January 2021 | Users could provide detailed feedback on businesses' health and safety measures through the COVID-19 section. |
2020 | Business Insider conducted an investigative report questioning Yelp's internal culture, ethics, and business practices. |
June 2020 | Yelp launched a COVID-19 section enabling businesses to update their health and safety measures. |
June 5 2020 | Yelp launched a tool to identify and search for black-owned businesses, with over 2.5 million searches between May 25 and July 10. |
April 9 2020 | Due to COVID-19 pandemic impacts, Yelp announced layoffs of 1,000 employees, furloughed about 1,100 employees, reduced hours, cut executive pay, and stopped paying the CEO for the rest of 2020. |
2019 | A documentary film 'Billion Dollar Bully' was released, documenting Yelp's alleged business practices. |
December 2019 | Yelp won a court case challenging the company's explanation of how its review recommendation software worked, with the court ruling finding no evidence of nefarious actions. |
2018 | In the Hassell v. Bird case, the California Supreme Court narrowly ruled (4-3) that a business cannot force Yelp to remove a review, even if the review is defamatory. |
August 2017 | Yelp sold Eat24 to Grubhub for $287.5 million, creating a partnership to integrate Grubhub delivery into restaurant Yelp profiles. |
April 2017 | A Norfolk, Massachusetts jury awarded a jewelry store over $34,000 after determining a competitor's employee filed a false negative Yelp review causing emotional distress. |
April 2017 | Yelp acquired Wi-Fi marketing company Turnstyle Analytics for $20 million. |
March 2017 | Yelp acquired the restaurant reservation app Nowait for $40 million. |
February 14 2017 | Yelp launched Yelp Questions and Answers, a feature allowing users to ask venue-specific questions about businesses. |
2016 | Yelp started a 7-10% cash-back program at some US restaurants through a partnership with Empyr. |
November 2 2016 | Yelp announced a drastic scaling back of international operations, resulting in termination of employees across 30+ international markets. |
2015 | The Federal Trade Commission completed a second examination of Yelp's practices and did not pursue action against the company. |
2015 | Yelp introduced a 'Public Services & Government' section and began experimenting with consumer alerts about restaurant hygiene scores in San Francisco. |
February 2015 | Yelp announced the acquisition of Eat24, an online food-ordering service, for $134 million. |
2014 | A Harvard study found that the percentage of fake reviews on Yelp had increased to 20%. |
2014 | Yelp released a mobile app for business owners to respond to reviews and manage their profiles. |
2014 | Yelp became profitable for the first time. |
December 2014 | A court denied an effort to dismiss Yelp's lawsuit against a lawyer alleged to be part of a group of law firms exchanging Yelp reviews. |
October 2014 | Yelp collaborated with Hipmunk to add hotel booking features. |
September 2014 | The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit, finding that potential review manipulation would not legally constitute extortion. |
March 2014 | Yelp added features for ordering and scheduling manicures, flower deliveries, golf games, and legal consultations. |
2013 | Yelp added features for food ordering, delivery, hygiene inspection scores, and spa appointment booking. |
2013 | Yelp acquired online reservation startup SeatMe for $12.7 million in cash and stock. |
2013 | CEO Jeremy Stoppelman reduced his salary to $1. |
September 2013 | Yelp cooperated with Operation Clean Turf, a sting operation by the New York Attorney General that uncovered 19 astroturfing operations. |
August 2013 | Yelp launched town hall style meetings in 22 major American cities to address concerns from local business owners about review practices. |
June 2013 | Yelp filed a lawsuit against BuyYelpReview/AdBlaze for allegedly writing fake reviews for pay. |
2012 | Yelp acquired its largest European rival, Qype, for $50 million. |
October 2012 | Yelp placed a 90-day 'consumer alert' on 150 business listings believed to have paid for reviews, with an alert reading 'We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business'. |
September 2012 | Yelp's content was integrated into Apple's Siri and iOS 6 mapping and directions app. |
March 2 2012 | Yelp's stock began public trading on the New York Stock Exchange after filing for an initial public offering (IPO) in November 2011. |
2011 | San Francisco U.S. District Judge Edward Chen dismissed the class-action lawsuit, stating that reviews were protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1996. |
2010 | Yelp ceased its 'featured review' practice in response to criticism about allowing advertising partners to manipulate review listings. |
2010 | Check-in features were added to the Yelp platform, enabling users to check in at various businesses. |
2010 | Yelp reached $30 million in revenue and published approximately 4.5 million crowd-sourced reviews. |
June 2010 | Yelp Reservations feature was initially added, allowing users to make restaurant reservations directly through the platform. |
March 2010 | Nine additional businesses joined the initial class-action lawsuit, and two similar lawsuits were also filed against Yelp. |
February 2010 | A class-action lawsuit was filed against Yelp alleging extortion by asking a Long Beach veterinary hospital to pay $300 monthly for advertising services that would suppress or delete negative customer reviews. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Yelp, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.