>Don’t aggregate or blend our star ratings and review counts with other providers. You may show content from multiple providers, but Yelp data should stand on its own. For example, you may not average Yelp business ratings with other providers to show an overall score.
If you're combining ratings from different platforms, this seems to fall foul of Yelp's developer TOS (and a few others, I believe)
Also, I think these are just the terms for using the API. I'm not sure if they can do anything if I don't use the API.
Even If Yelp and Foursquare are a no-go, that still leaves 6 other solid review platforms to use.
Yelp and foursquare are useful but not the best. The granularity of rating for Yelp is too big. Over 50% of restaurants are 4.0 stars. (That's why the app is useful) Foursquare is the least used platform with the oldest reviews.
"You also agree not to, and will not assist, encourage, or enable others to:"
"Use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other automated device, process or means to access, retrieve, scrape, or index any portion of the Site or any Site Content;"
"By accessing or using the Site, you are agreeing to these Terms and concluding a legally binding contract with Yelp Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California ("Yelp"). Do not access or use the Site if you are unwilling or unable to be bound by the Terms."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/07/court-violating-terms-...
If a user contributes to any platform, the information should be open for all to use. Including FB, instagram, or any review site.
Wouldn't seem fair if Yelp did all the work and any app or platform can simply piggyback off of it and present it as their own, or obscure where it came from.
Because it sounds like a pretty good idea. Freely distributable attributed reviews under non exclusive licence is way cooler than a db full of yelp scrapings.