Last year, a group of Yelp reviewers had their accounts deactivated. After that happened, they decided to sue Yelp for back wages. They claimed that the functions they performed were functions that an employee would perform, with guidance and critique from Yelp management. The ex-reviewers said they provided content that Yelp could sell advertisements against.
The case was dismissed last week by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg. One thing that wasn’t really that clear to the judge was what the plaintiffs were actually after.
The complaint said that the lawsuit was to provide wages to all writers on Yelp, and not just the ones that Yelp chooses to pay in wages.
“Hire” and “fire” was interpreted by the court as “account creation and termination.” The court did acknowledge that Yelp sees financial profit from the reviews, but it doesn’t mean the writers are performing a service for Yelp.
This isn’t the first time Yelp was sued for something like this. In the past, the site was sued by some users for compensation of wages, as well as benefits and they were seeking reimbursement for the reviews they created. The lawsuit ended up being dismissed.
