yelp

You may recall that, yesterday, we wrote about the class action lawsuit filed against dentist Stacy Makhnevich.

Makhnevich used ethically and legally dubious forms from the organization Medical Justice, to demand the future copyrights on any reviews a patient might write about them.

BestVendor helps businesspeople choose the best tools and applications with Yelp-like social recommendations from fellow SMBs who share and rate Web services, cloud apps, and software.

We keep hearing stories about how "the internet is killing music" or "the internet is killing newspapers," which inevitably seem to suggest that "something must be done," and often that "something" involves the government getting involved.

Of course, if you look at the details, you realize that the internet isn't killing music or journalism at all.

In many ways it's just changing both and enabling new means of creation, distribution, promotion and sales.

In case you didn't get the memo, Yelp has expanded -- to sex clubs. First, there was the quest to find that ultimate hipster spot (if they hadn’t already deemed it too “mainstream”), but now it’s off to what happens in the dark, naughty crevices of the night.

Yelp has added "Hipster" to its possible categories for a location's ambiance, and the first reaction that came to mind is "redundant." Here are five suggestions that would actually be helpful.

The proliferation of websites such as Yelp and CitySearch has made it easy to find local businesses that meet common search criteria — moderately priced seafood restaurants, for example, within a quarter-mile of a particular subway stop.

But what about the not-so-common criteria? How big are the portions? Are diners packed too closely together?

Does the bartender make a good martini?

It's really quite stunning how frequently people sue review sites because they're unhappy about reviews of their business.

You would hope that the lawyers these upset business owners use would know better -- but all too often the lawyers appear to be totally unfamiliar with Section 230 of the CDA and with the basic concept of properly applying liability to the party who actually did the action.

And every time this happens, the case gets thrown out on 230 grounds.