The Right to Yelp!

I stumbled across an interesting subject in my email, "The Right To Yelp." Yelp is a social media platform that allows users to share reviews about their customer experience with businesses. Many businesses use their Yelp ratings as third-party validation when marketing to new customers.

Last week, Congress passed a bill that will reach President Obama shortly. It prevents Yelp businesses from threatening and retaliating against negative reviews. There was an instance of a consumer who refused to take down a negative review. The business threatened him, hit him with a lawsuit, and fined him. He didn't pay and the business reported the fine to a credit bureau as debt which negatively affected his credit score. All because he wrote the truth of his customer experience and the business didn't like it. As a result of the law, businesses will be fined up to $40,000 for retaliating against consumers for honest reviews.

This law makes me feel more confident in the Yelp reviews I see as I know they have not been tampered with and are a true representation of a real customer's existence

Reference: Yelp!.