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Today, Yelp again took aim at claims that it had blackmailed restaurant owners into purchasing ads. Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman addressed the claims brought against the company in a pending class action lawsuit by addressing how the company conducts business. As he explained the situation, though, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to take potshots at the plaintiffs by saying that they had hired,“theOrly Taitzof internet lawyers who may or may not have read about our recentfunding round....

The location reviews space has never been more competitive, and now one of its best-known names,Yelp, is expanding its European presence. Following a launch in Italy last month, today sees the service debutin Switzerland. While users can post reviews across the country, the company is installing a full-time community manager in Zurich. As wereportedearlier this year, Yelp’s growth strategy differs from its rivals by concentrating on particular cities, hiring a dedicated staff member to work with local users and traders to develop local content....

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit againstYelpin which businesses had accused Yelp of extortion. The plaintiffs had accused Yelp, a site where users generate reviews of local businesses, of demanding advertising dollars to prevent the company from negatively manipulating reviews of their businesses. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel has dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiff’s assertions were speculative and that communications from Yelp did not meet the criteria of an extortionate threat....

Talking on the stage atTechCrunch Disrupt, Yelp’s CEO Jeremy Stoppelman had some interesting facts and ideas to give when it came to Yelp. Given a recentGoogle acquisition of Zagat, he had some things to say there, too. The first thing to mention is that Stoppelman claims some huge numbers for Yelp. How huge? A 54% traffic growth this year has led the service to 63 million monthly unique visits. 21 million reviews grace the site and the app, and 1 million are being added every 30 days....

The discovery of life on another world would be a monumental moment in the history of human civilization. The most likely way we will, one day, find alien life will be discovering chemical markers of life in the atmosphere of planets orbiting distant stars. One of these markers is oxygen, which currently makes up a little over 20 percent of the atmosphere of our own world. However, our own world held onto relatively little oxygen until 2....