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The guys talk about Yelp's complaints that Google is altering search results. They also answer, "In the Belford example and those working in "boiler rooms" they are convicted of using unfair selling tactics but what does that mean? Do salesmen not use unfair sales tactics when they psychoanalyze the client and use that to their advantage?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: This is Matt Staub. NASIR: And welcome to Episode 68 where we cover business legal news and answer some of your business legal questions that you can send in as a listener to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. This is our jogging episode of the week. MATT: Yeah, slowly picking up. 68 seems like a lot. I wouldn’t have guessed that. Probably I would guess, like, 38 maybe. NASIR: I was going to guess, like, 67 or 69. MATT: Good guess. NASIR: About 68. MATT: Ah, if you got 69, Price is Right rules, I still would have won. You’ve got to guess under. All right, what do we have on the jogging episode here? NASIR: By the way, anyone that didn’t listen to Monday’s episode has no idea what a jogging episode is but that’s okay. MATT: Yeah, they’ll figure it out. NASIR: If you haven’t listened to Mondays’ episode, go back two days ago – Episode 67, I believe, if my math is correct. MATT: This is, like, 24 and you need to start. You can’t just jump into the middle of it. If you’ve never listened to an episode, you’ve got to start at one and you’ve got to work your way up to 68. Everything connects. NASIR: Everything connects. MATT: Not true. If you enjoy this topic, then just listen to this one. NASIR: And events occur in real time. MATT: Very good, I like that. All right. So, we have a dispute between Yelp and Google. NASIR: I choose Google. MATT: So, no one’s going to feel sympathy for Yelp in this situation but, basically, what Yelp is claiming is Google is altering search results to put their Google sponsored content higher than Yelp’s stuff. I mean, I’m just thinking, when I Google something – like, the most common thing, a restaurant – probably what’s going to pop up is the restaurant’s website but, like, one of the first or second things that pop up is usually their Yelp page because that’s what people go to. I mean, a Yelp page is actually going to tell you more than a restaurant website ever will. Plus, you can get the link for the website on Yelp anyway. But Yelp is complaining that Google is unfairly altering the search results. I think you and I are probably on the same page here. I think we’re probably going to side with Google on this one. NASIR: Yeah, just because we hate Yelp. By the way, the technical term is “SURP” which is the Search Engine Result Page rank. MATT: Ah, gotcha! Interesting. NASIR: Talk about SURPs and SEO. I guess that’s not interesting at all. But, anyway, what was interesting is that the only reason we know Yelp thinks this way is because documents of Yelp was released and TechCrunch published some of them. First of all, this may be an issue for Google, especially in the EU, they’re a little more strict when it comes to shutting down monopolies and I think they’ve declared Google as a monopoly when it comes to search engines so, if they unfairly put up their results that they like over others, then that might be construed in such a way and, you know, Yelp builds probably a good case. But, look, any business owner that talks about SEO and thinks about SEO and as far as their marketing plan has had trouble one day or the other with their rankings on Google. Frankly, Yelp, being a target for ex-employees and your competitors to leave bad reviews for you, I don’t really care if Yelp goes down on the list, frankly – at least for our clients’ sake, right? MATT: Yeah, a lot of the stuff that’s on Yelp, I mean, people are going to find that stuff anyway. People want to see Yelp reviews so they’re just going to search out.