Social Web sites face transparency questions – The Associated Press(E-Business)

This tug of war has become increasingly public with the explosive popularity of social Web sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, as well as niche sites like Yelp, which has more than 5 million reviews on establishments in dozens of cities. She wrote that although she likes using Yelp as a consumer, as a business owner “Yelp just about ‘sucks it. So Tagorda put up a post on Yelp about her own business, indicating the names of users whose Flair-Designs reviews have disappeared. So far, her post about Yelp has stayed up, and she recently added a star to that review, updating it to say she’s “becoming a little happier with Yelp as a business owner. Recent news reports have cited other disagreements over Yelp, including allegations from businesses that Yelp offered to obscure negative reviews or move up positive ones in exchange for advertising dollars. read more

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