March 23, 2009, 8:05 PM — After the East Bay Express ran a long feature in February about how the online review site, Yelp, was manipulating positive and negative reviews for paying advertisers, the company's CEO Jeremy Stoppleman responded, denying the accusations and criticizing the Express reporter for using too many anonymous sources.
Numerous other news outlets, including The Industry Standard, also followed up on the Yelp story after the Express ran the piece. Some stories cast Yelp in a positive light. Others, not so much.
Now Kathleen Richards, the Express reporter who wrote the piece, has a rebuttal to Stoppleman's claims that her reporting was shoddy. It's in the form of a follow-up piece, this time with no anonymous sources.
She writes about numerous Bay Area merchants who, on the record, say they've faced extortion from Yelp representatives. She even names the Yelp employees who made the nefarious demands.
There has been no response yet from Stoppleman on the official Yelp blog.
