IT Buoy

As reported by the Journal, the reviews Web site Yelp is under fire. It is facing three lawsuits from businesses that claim it improperly skews reviews in favor of companies that advertise with it and against those that do not. Yelp denies the allegations, blaming misunderstandings about the way it filters reviews to prevent businesses from inflating their ratings. One contributing factor may be that Yelp chooses not to explain much about how it decides which reviews to show and which to hide. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman says that exposing too much of the site’s secret technology sauce would make it easier for shills to fill the site with puffed up reviews. “It is similar to the challenge that Google faces in ranking Web sites,” he said. “The more that they share with the world about how they specifically evaluate links on the Web, the more they make it easy for somebody that wants to rank number one to do so.” Still, Yelp is going on the offensive to explain why it filters. In addition to numerous blog posts addressing critics, the company last year hired a local business outreach manager, and has been holding a series of meetings with businesses to explain its practices

Documents released Thursday in a court battle between Viacom and Google’s YouTube reveal the arguments over alleged copyright infringements on the video site. As the Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro, Ben Worthen and Sam Schechner report , Viacom claims that YouTube sought to exploit copyrighted works for profit, while Google argues that Viacom itself had secretly uploaded clips it later demanded YouTube remove. AFP/Getty Images The Internet homepage of the YouTube Web site Below are excerpts from the documents. (The filing and comments from Google are available here . Viacom’s filings are available here .) The Big Picture From Viacom: “The starting point for this motion is this undisputable fact: tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views, were taken unlawfully from Viacom’s copyrighted works without authorization. Fostering and countenancing this piracy were central to YouTube’s economic business model.” From YouTube: “Plaintiffs demand billions of dollars from YouTube because a tiny fraction (less than two one-hundredths of a percent) of the videos that users have uploaded to the service allegedly infringe their copyrights. While plaintiffs now insist that YouTube is liable because it should have recognized that their content was not authorized, plaintiffs’ own actions defeat that claim. Plaintiffs … have overtly and covertly uploaded to YouTube a vast array of their own video clips for marketing purposes.” Viacom argues that YouTube’s founders knew they were benefiting from copyrighted material

From China Real Time Report : A group of Google Inc.’s partners in China have sent a letter to the Internet giant, saying their businesses are in jeopardy if Google closes its Chinese search engine and demanding to know how they will be compensated. The company said it received the letter and was reviewing it Tuesday. Our translation of the letter, e-mailed to Google Monday night, is below. (Not all the resellers listed as signatories in the letter had a part in drafting it, and each has a unique relationship under different terms with Google.) Associated Press Google China headquarters building in Beijing Dear Dr. Liu Yun (John Liu), Since Google’s chief legal officer announced on Google’s official blog back on Jan 13 that Google was considering pulling out of China, there has been an endless flow of rumors. Over the past two months, even during the Chinese traditional holiday — the Spring Festival Season, we were very restless, upset, and very worried. We see all kinds of news related to Google coming out, but cannot predict the future; we see our business volume declining dramatically, but feel powerless to stop it; and we see our employees leaving one after another, without being able to persuade them to stay. The only answers we get back from Google, and all that we can do, is to simply wait — wait in extreme pain, full of uncertainty

Google Maps has satellite images of the entire earth, street view images of major cities , and even images of the interiors of select stores . Now, they’re coming into your home. Okay, not really. This satirical look at “Google HomeView” is in German, but is surprisingly funny even if you don’t speak the language. Any German-speaking readers want to help us get the jokes that don’t come across? Read the rest of this story

Are Americans now more likely to get content from their friends than random Web sites that they wouldn’t be able to find on their own? AFP/Getty Images The Internet homepage of the social media Web site Facebook That’s one of the implications of a report out Monday by Internet research company Hitwise, which found that Facebook passed Google as the most visited Web site in the U.S. last week. Facebook just squeaked by the search giant, as visits to the social-networking site made up 7.07% of all Web visits compared with 7.03% for Google. But that was enough to knock Google out of the top spot for the first time since the week ending Sept. 15, 2007. One reason for Facebook’s success is features that make it easy to share information and online content with friends, says Matt Tatham, director of media relations at Hitwise.