Jeremy Stoppelman: What's the deal?

Yelp has a problem: it's head.

It looks like Yelp is forced to create artificial sales pressure because without it, the advertising product wouldn't sell. Why buy ads if you already have good reviews? You wouldn't. Here's proof that Yelp is a sucky advertising product. So, you'd only buy ads if you had bad reviews you wanted to remove, or you could get better reviews, or there was a threat that your reviews would get worse, right?

The Yelp community needs someone with the guts to figure out a better model and get rid of any problems that exist. Remove peverse incentives that lead to extortion-like sales. Remove secret shills. Stop cowardly censorship.

Mr. Stoppleman, many, many reputable people call you a liar (see the Press page for just a sampling). If what you say about trying to get salespeople to follow the rules is true, then are you incompetent? It doesn't look like the team is following what you say. Or what do you really tell your team? Either way, do the right thing and leave.

Would you trust Jeremy Stoppelman with your money? These guys did...

Want to join the Yelp class action lawsuit? Please do.

A fish rots from the head