Battling extortion claims

12 First the chefs of a small Italian restaurant got mad at online review site Yelp. Instead of trying to get better reviews, they decided to take a different approach: get terrible ones.

The campaign helped Botte Bistro get a rating of one out of five stars. It was the latest protest among businesses who for years have complained that Yelp was extorting them by raising or dropping ratings depending on whether they advertised with the Internet’s most popular review site.

Yelp has persistently denied those claims. “It wouldn’t pass the straight face test,” Yelp spokesman Vince Sullitto said.