Botto Bistro, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco, is vying for the worst Yelp rating in the Bay Area by offering customers 25 percent off for their 1-star reviews. Owner David Cerretini, who tells SFGate that the promotion is "the best business move I have made in years," says the whole thing started when Yelp blackmailed him.

Cerretini claims Yelp called him 20 times a week asking him to advertise. He did, to the tune of $270 for six months. But when he stopped advertising, he claims his reviews turned negative and one of his best reviews even vanished. That, according to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, is something Yelp is legally entitled to do.

He's getting the last laugh now turning this whole Yelp thing into viral marketing.

Like Facebook, Yelp needs to learn that advertising has to work and blackmail is not working. Facebook, for example, keeps trying to get us to advertise and every time we do, the ad is blocked and cancelled for one reason or another. We contact Facebook and they say they will approve it but it might just get rejected again - and it does. So, we stopped spending money on Facebook to reach people because it does not work. On average only about 1% of our 85,000+ fans ever see our posts anyway, another form of blackmail IMHO, so why waste our hard earned money?

Keep it up Yelp, Facebook and anyone else that is using these tactics as they have grown to huge corporations. You think you're so big that someone can't swoop in and crush you? I'll bet MySpace thought so too.



Check it out: Yelp page
Source: Adweek