From
SF Eater's Paolo: While Yelp keeps
complaining about the treatment they get in the [San Francisco] Chron,
the state's other paper of record is the latest to question the website's strong-arm advertising tactics:
"Some restaurant owners say the San Francisco company is unusually
aggressive in trying to get businesses to pay hundreds of dollars ...
They also say
paying Yelp is often the only way to counter negative reviews
posted by rival eateries ... 'We felt like we had no choice,' Jamie
Inzunza, owner of Mamma’s Brick Oven Pizza in South Pasadena, said of
the $350 she pays Yelp every month. 'We decided that
we had to spend all this money to protect ourselves once the bad reviews started appearing.'"