Ridiculous Yelp Lawsuit Alleges Reviewers are Employees
Do you wonder why lawyers often have a bad reputation? If so, consider the ridiculous Yelp lawsuit alleging that Yelp’s reviewers are employees of the company.
Yelp is an online review site and local business search service. Consumers are encouraged to write reviews of, and rate their satisfaction with, various products and services.
Historically, controversies have concerned whether Yelp punishes businesses for not advertising on the site (which Yelp denies). More recently, business owners have complained about Yelp’s automated tools for removing false or inappropriate (e.g., paid) reviews based on unpublished criteria.
Failure to Encrypt Passwords Leads to Class Action Lawsuit
On December 28, 2009, RockYou, Inc., a developer of applications for Facebook and other social networks, was sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The class action complaint alleges failure to encrypt users’ e-mail addresses and passwords and was filed shortly after a hacker copied that information for 32 million RockYou users. (more…)