A group of Yelp reviewers, or Yelpers as they're more commonly known, have just lost a class action law suit against the company.
Yelp is a popular website that lets users rate and review a number of establishments ranging from restaurants and bars to shopping malls and salons.
The plaintiffs argued that they deserved to be compensated for the reviews they contribute to the site. According to Forbes:
"each of the three named plaintiffs alleges that he or she "was hired by Yelp, Inc. as a writer and she fulfilled that job description and job functions." Each plaintiff allegedly was "directed how to write reviews and given other such employee type direction from employer defendant." Yelp allegedly controlled each plaintiff's "work schedule and conditions." Two of the three plaintiffs are alleged to have been "fired" with "no warning [and] a flimsy explanation."
However a California court has just ruled that is argument was not valid. Techdirt printed this excerpt from the ruling which says:
"A reasonable inference to be drawn from the complaint, and from plaintiffs' arguments, is plaintiffs use the term "hired" to refer to a process by which any member of the public can sign up for an account on the Yelp website and submit reviews, and the term "fired" to refer to having their accounts involuntarily closed, presumably for conduct that Yelp contends breached its terms of service agreement. A further reasonable inference is that plaintiffs and the putative class members may contribute reviews under circumstances that either cannot be reasonably characterized as performing a service to Yelp at all, or that at most would constitute acts of volunteerism."
This isn't the first time Yelpers have taken legal action against the company. In 2013, Eater reported that a group of reviewers launched a similar law suit but it was also shot down by the courts.
