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Comment by jc4p | Hacker News Reader

I can't wait until he starts talking about why Google is bad, I wonder if any one knows about Yelp's "pay us for advertising or you'll have your good reviews deleted" policy.

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This was my first thought as well. I completely disagree with him that Yelp would not have been able to start up right now. Google would have helped drive traffic to yelp now just as it did then. Edit: I think I remember it being "join Yelp so you can delete the bad reviews".

I really thought he was going to talk about how he couldn't create Yelp now because of Google buying Zagat but it seemed like his entire point was "Google is evil."

I'm glad the person currently speaking who actually understands technology (seemingly) and worked on antitrust law suits knows what she's saying.

Yelp's own actions notwithstanding, it is quite true that Google has pulled some questionable moves and is clearly attempting to drive traffic to their own products.

Not that I like Yelp however ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

Why shouldn't Google attempt to drive traffic to their own products? If I write two books, should I be able to recommend one in the other? How is this any different?

except perhaps at great effort and expense, you can't gain a monopoly over books on a given topic, and once someone has transferred all of the information out of your book into their mind by reading it, the book has no enduring value to them.

the analogy is more like that of a car manufacturer gaining 90% market share, designing the interface between it and its seats to be proprietary (and preventing other manufacturers from learning about it except through a business agreement with them), then getting into the seat business and making it clear that third-party seat manufacturers make inferior products.

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