By Anna Roth
The internet’s all in a tizzy the past few days thanks to a Wednesday ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which said that review site Yelp could manipulate its ratings for money.
So, say a small diner makes a big ad buy on the site, those extra dollars could maybe boost the diner’s rating, thus potentially gaining it more customers. (This could be one way to explain the enduring popularity of the solidly mediocre Codmother Fish and Chips on Yelp’s Top 100 list for San Francisco, but of course it’s probably just that legions of Fisherman’s Wharf tourists love the place.)
