Google Sued Over GBP Order CTA, Publishers Sue Ad Providers, Yelp’s 2021 Traffic Declines

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Restaurants sue Google for adding Order buttons through 3rd parties to their Business Profile.
In 2019, Google automatically added DoorDash/GrubHub order buttons to the Google Business Profile for thousands of US based restaurants. Now the company is being sued over "order online" in federal court, in a potential class action. The plaintiff, Lime Fresh Mexican Grill, accuses Google of creating an "illicit storefront," unauthorized use of restaurant names and IP and deceiving consumers.

Publishers argue ad providers are scraping too much content to deliver contextual ads
Newspapers are suing the companies that are providing them with contextual advertising, claiming that these very same companies are scraping more content than authorized and selling ads to national clients that the newspapers want.

Yelp’s 2021 showed solid financials but user declines and review acquisition headwinds.
Yelp, after layoffs, changing sales models and rolling out new products, Yelp had a bang up 2021. But Yelp user traffic peaked in 2017, was flat or down pre-pandemic and plummeted during the past 2 years. Where user growth will come from is not clear Meanwhile their review growth has slowed and their review corpus has become stale making user growth even harder.

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 55

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