User Reviews

"Billion Dollar Bully" is a frustrating inside look at everyday people trying to make a living and the consequences of online marketing.

In this documentary, online marketing giant Yelp! is accused of running a mob-like game against business owners who refuse to pay for their online services.

Once you see this film you begin to realize how crazy the world of online marketing is and how much these big companies have control. "Billion Dollar Bully" is interesting throughout but I did want more at the end. I felt like some of the interviews were cut short and I would've like to have learned more about certain business owners. Overall, still a gutsy topic to tackle against such a massive cooperation.

It could have been so nice, and for a while it was ...

But then scammers and big corporations found their way to the world wide web and started exploiting and corrupting it all.

This documentary is mostly about yelp, but one of their dutch analogs is why I personally don't like leaving reviews of any kind on the web. (including this one right here)

What I particularly like in Billion Dollar Bully, is how it was funded, that it's not overly long and that a nice diverse group of stakeholders could voice their views. That yelp themselves declined is all the more telling.

As a business owner, I can personally attest to the continual pestering of Yelp employees claiming that advertising can help grow my business. My response to them is that I know what is best for my business and advertising is not something that I'm interested in. They persist and vindicate that they want to help me. 5 out of 7 of my 5 star reviews are hidden/not recommended, so I told a Yelp employee this, and they strategically mentioned that if I advertise, reviews will begin to show again. Yelp mentions on this page that they do not extort reviews.Yelp can justify and deem what 'extortion' and 'manipulate ratings' mean in their own language, but the legal standard for law, subjective and objective standard of reasonableness, would state that hidden reviews and paying for advertising to unhide these reviews IS extortion. Yelp so subtly uses wording to justify their own words. Fake customers also send me messages for quotes and having counted 24 actual messages, not a single customer followed up to schedule an appointment. All of the quotes were excellent prices. Suspicious much?

Firstly, why do I know that the above reviewer 'random-70778' works for Yelp? They've reviewed this documentary in exactly the same way that Yelp works

Anyways, this is really interesting and give you cause to think about those reviews you're reading online, not only with Yelp, but on all sites where reviews can be left.

Anyone who knows about IP addresses and the internet knows not to believe anything you read , thrown in a few billion dollars and control over someone's online reputation and you have the ingredients needed to scam business. A great documentary and have experienced these issues myself.

Let me get this straight: Yelp uses exact SAME model as all the newspaper's advertising departments, and magazines, the same model as the "Yellow Pages" of old, the same as Google -- even "Angies list" etc, and yet it is Yelp that is uniquely a problem?

This documentary is not about the real issues of concern, such as larger privacy issues arising out of the net. this film is simply a symptom of pearl clutching in the culture of outrage and offense at nothing. The haters of Yelp are not small business. Small businesses are enable by Yelp. the haters of yelp are big business who want to control what is said about them.

EG The producer of this documentary seems to support illegal "disparagement clauses." For example if you hire a major national plumbing company their standard service agreement probably has fine print "disparagement clause" saying you cant write a review disparaging their work for you even if you are truthful in doing so. Yelp, the ACLU, the Electronic Freedom foundation and every major consumer advocacy organization have have successful fought those "disparagement clauses" yet this film sides with big business that want to muzzle consumers that have been ripped off.

If you go to the trailers section of IMDB to look for a specific trailer, there is in the background, half the screen a PAID advert for a competing film. Modern viewers know what that is -- only easily outrages do not.

Let's put this in perspective. Do you think a supermarket ought to be forbidden from putting point of sale, higher profit, items at the cash register?

As far as review shilling, running a fakespot (google it) analysis of the reviews of this film on amzon show 19% of the positive are likely fake -- meaning close to one in five positive reviews on amazon for this film itself are likely shills. Yelp has lower estimated proportion of shill/astotrfing and is therefore more truthful and accurate than than google reviews, amazon -- or even angies list!

What a bully, i heard few stories from small coffee shop owner and watched this documentary - brilliant and balanced. Online reviews are taking SME's hostages, especially in the F&B sector. It almost feels like this needs a separate regulator of its own - who can set the terms of fair engagement on this front. Too many businesses have suffered and yelp created this hoopla to benefit from...

What a bully, i heard few stories from small coffee shop owner and watched this documentary - brilliant and balanced. Online reviews are taking SME's hostages, especially in the F&B sector. It almost feels like this needs a separate regulator of its own....