Integrating Yelp into my Google account might encourage me to do more rating as I visit different places, increasing the number of middle-of-the-road ratings I'd give. If other users followed suit, Yelp might be a more representative sample of customer experience.

Alas, this Google integration was not to be as from the $550 million deal, which is a lot more than I'd give for Yelp.

As I said, Yelp denies the allegations, and had this to say in a short post to its :

"You can see for yourself: thousands of businesses that advertise on Yelp have both negative and positive reviews. Despite these - (virtually no advertiser on Yelp has a perfect reputation), , and the absence of any actual evidence to support this theory, this unfortunate and untrue meme has taken on a life of its own."

Short of current or former employees willing to validate the claims of Yelp's accusers, media inquiries will end inconclusively. The inability to find such people, however, tends to support Yelp's denials.