(The aforementioned former employee, by the way--who is also quoted anonymously--doesn't seem to say anything about the allegations of extortion.)

Cue the Defense

Now, for the other side: Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman posted what can only be described as a counterattack on . Stoppelman offers an example of a typical advertiser's page, noting that many neutral and even negative ratings pepper the reviews.

"This is quite normal," he says, "and if you look around the site and click on some ads, you'll find plenty of advertisers with reviews that look like... well, everybody else."

Stoppelman goes on to attempt a point-by-point destruction of Richards' story, discussing the "heavy reliance on anonymous sources" as well as what he describes as some "serious credibility issues" with one of the few named sources. (The woman, he says, owns a business that has been caught submitting fake reviews to try to boost its profile.)