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He reviewed the same Sauce in the same day in different parts of town. How likely is that to be genuine? Yelp should have some algorithms to at least flag such things for manual review, it would certainly look fishy even if we didn't know the true story.

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As far as I understand, Yelp is a pretty scummy company. Apparently, they frequently call small business owners and offer to hide negative reviews in exchange for payment. (http://www.ibtimes.com/yelp-extortion-rampant-say-small-busi...) From Yelp's perspective, it's not in their best interest to protect the companies their users review because there's no money in it for them.

The fact that Yelp allegedly sells their services by promising to manipulate Yelp results is beyond despicable, if true. However, the lawsuit has its dangers too - as making Yelp liable for reviews should be possible only if it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that indeed review manipulation is a common practice at Yelp and not just a lie by a rogue salesman. I'd be very interested in a discovery process that would allow to decide this question one way or another, but I understand so far there's no hard evidence for it. So I also understand EFF's side when they say absent such proof it is very bad idea to make Yelp liable - and would have very bad implications on other sites, including this very forum.

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