A little story i’ve been following for about a year now, regarding Yelp and their “advertising sales tactics” seems to have grown some teeth.  According to numerous sources, a class action lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Yelp, the massive directory / review website, alleging:

The lawsuit alleges that Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of “advertising contracts,” in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website.

I can’t say this comes as much of a surprise.