And cleaning Service Owner lakeisha alton says when she confronted yelp about the problem, she told her paying them could be the solution. She joins us now along with social media expert ryan ames and Harvard Business professor, michael luca who coauthored a study on yelp services. Lakeisha, i want to get your story out there which is one we heard from folks out there. If you search your service on yelp and comes up, and looks like no reviews and no stars that no one bothered to do anything. When you scroll down further. I think we have this further, when you scroll down further to the bottom, you can see that you actually have four reviews and says that they are not recommended. We know for sure these are real because one of them actually comes from one of our producers who uses your service all the time and says youre great. We know at least for sure one of them is real. It makes it look like youre going down you see an ad for one of your competitors along the way as it looks like you dont have any reviews, directing your customers to someone else. How has all this impacted your business . Well, it has had a big impact on my business because instead of customers going for my business, theyre clicking on other businesses. Melissa and what happened when you called yelp and said hey, wait a second, some of my good valuable customers went on and wrote reviews and youre not showing them. What do they say to you . Instead of acknowledging me, they started to trying to solicit and asked me to pay money and Different Things like that. Melissa so they wanted you to buy ads . They wanted me to start buying ads. Melissa and when you said, what was your response to that . I told them no, i wanted to focus on my customers. My customers left valued reviews, respectful reviews and, they didnt want to acknowledge that. They told me that it was a Computer System. That it wasnt their fault. Melissa and they didnt offer anyway to fix it . Because it looks like you have no stars. We know that those are all valuable to people going on and trying to find, you know, sort of any kind of a Small Business. You know, what did you say about the star system in particular . Because youre rated and looks like youre not . Well, if you look and you do click on the inrope rat ad i do have i have five stars but the yelp manager who i did speak to, he, for some reason he just wanted me to buy into the ads. Melissa yeah. He was, it seemed to me they really do not support Small Businesses. You have to have major money and they want to you mostly focus on buying ads. Melissa yeah. Ryan, does this story sound like the typical experience. Unfortunately all too familiar, right . It is called earned media, right not paid media. We have an issue here where the two are getting mixed together. Before we go there, lets take a step back. We have two really big problems here. We have a Customer Service problem and authenticity problem, right . Customer service, too big, too bad. Heard it before. Yelp is growing organization. Melissa that is not what we are really focused on though. What were focused on she has legitimate reviews four of them and theyre being hidden from view and being told, basically you have to pay an buy an ad and that is the way to fix the problem. And shouldnt be the way to fix this problem because the issue this is called earned media. This is customer that is value her service because she has a great product. They comment on it and partake in it and should be rewarded. She shouldnt have to pay for extra recognition there. Melissa michael, you have studied yelp in particular closely. Im immediately suspicious of these sites but you know i was talking to the staff on the show today they all said before they go try a new cleaner, try a new service they look online to see what other people have written so this does impact them. You quantified every star is worth 5 of sales. Is that right . Yeah, thats right. So yelp reviews are extremely influential for Small Businesses. I painstakingly worked with the Washington State department of revenue what a one star looks like, matched up series of restaurants with their sales on quarter by quarter basis. One star equalses 5 of increase in sales for independent restaurants. Since that study come out it is become increasingly clear this is important source of reputation for Small Business owners. Unfortunately one of the big challenges facing the review industry is how to know whether reviews are credible . Recent study, the one i coauthored what we had done look through the yelp reviews to get deeper and try to understand whats real, whats not and what is yelp doing about it. What yelp has in place and what is picked up in the reviews not currently recommended, is that, they have an algorithm behind the scenes where statistically say, well, this review doesnt seem like it is authentic. We were pretty shocked by the initial results when we looked at this. When we pulled reviews labeled as fillerred or not recommended or fraudulent, we saw in our sample of restaurants, roughly 20 of reviews were actually pulled off of the main part of the site all together. Melissa i mean that is the biggest problem with these sites, ryan. How do you know whats real and whats not . I understand yelp for their part, their stance is quality over quality. We only recommend 75 of the reviews submitted. My thought always why would you even list these reviews . If i was Small Business owner and lakeisha is not doing this, i would have my mom and you know, my dad and my friend and anyone else go on and write a review that was positive to promote my business. That is what theyre trying to sort out. How do they balance those two problems . That is the issue. Reviews drive revenue and yelp knows this, organizations know this. So if thats the case theyre going to be, authenticity is thrown out the door a little bit. Though there is an algorithm, they will place paid media over earned media. Which means people will have to pay more for the authenticity. For those reviews to remain authentic and customers not to get duped we have to make sure we keep it authentic. People get in the know they will know. Melissa it is not happeningg just not happening. Lakeisha i give you last word. What is your response from here . What are you going to do . Are you giving up on yelp . I decided to give up on yelp because, like, one of my customers, one of my customers told me that they did not see my reviews on yelp. I recommended my customers to look on yelp. Telling them, oh, i have very good reviews. You should check me out. And they went there and they saw absolutely nothing. Melissa they thought you were crazy. So it is not helpful. Basically. Melissa thanks so much. The government could be spying on you through your laptop. A shocking new report suggest that is nsa intercepted and bugged hundreds of thousands of devices. Were telling you if youre at risk. It is no surprise that many of the most successful people have egos. Im awesome, but some say a dose of narcissism is really the secret to success. Thank goodness. How much is too much. You have to hear this one. More money coming up. Melissa are you at all worried about the government spying on you at home from your own laptop . Maybe you should be, a shocking new report says the nsa implanted Surveillance Software in nearly 100,000 computers all over the world. They say it issto defend against Cyber Attacks but is that all . Joining me now the wall street journals spencer ante, former white house chief Information OfficerTeresa Peyton and cybersecurity expert morgan wright. Spencer, let me start with you, theyre doing this with a cable, a thumb drive . New york times had a pretty shocking report that said there are 100,000 of these devices, usb little inserts or computer Circuit Boards surreptitiously planted. Melissa how, when . Through spies or through, u. S. Agents that, obtained access to these computers and through some way, we dont know how, but they access these computers that are not connected to the internet. That is the key point. The u. S. Is struggling to be able to monitor these Computer System that is are not connected to the internet. This technology which works through radio waves, so these computers get planted into the these other chips into these computers and they get communicate through radio waves. Melissa yeah. To another computer nearby. They translate that information to the u. S. Melissa teresa youre nodding. Is it your impression the computers are out there . Like the episode of homeland quote and break into the home and swap out the mouse . Or before the computers reach the original destination . How do you think it is being done . Couple ways logistically they do this. If you intercept after something is ordered and shipped that is tricky because in this day and age you can track deliveries online. In other pieces you can trick them sometimes into doing this. Shows you can insert circuitry into charging element, going into the internet, they think theyre using a normal piece to plug in, charge up, even if they dont connect to the internet you can inaffect the computer. Melissa morgan, are other countries doing this as well besides us . Are you kidding were probably the tamest ones doing this right now. There are other countries with aggressive capabilities. We dont use our capabilities to benefit privatelyheld companies. We dont give them intelligence on other companies. We do this to defend the United States of america. One of the sad parts about this is, the more that we disclose, these legal methods being used against hostile and foreign powers, were reduced to blunt instruments trying to collect information and intelligence on people at some point who may do us harm. Melissa morgan, the moment i heard the story you say were not using this to collect information from companies, immediately i thought, is this what u. S. Companies are up against around the world . I mean are foreign absolutely. Melissa doing this to steal intellectual property . If i was a ceo at home this morning, watching, reading this report, that would be the first thing i thought, is somebody spying on my intellectual property. You say absolutely, morgan . Absolutely. Russia. China. The french did this famously with boeing and airbus were in negotiations. We dont use our Intelligence Service to provide economic advantage to u. S. Companies. Were at extreme disadvantage. Whether you think you like the collection that goes on, whether it should be done is policy issue. Whether it can be done is a legal issue and clearly have the legal right with the proper intelligence tasks to go after the targets against the United States. Melissa go ahead. What is interesting before the revelations of Edward Snowden which is really the trigger that sort of like leaked a lot of this information the u. S. Was actively campaigning and lobbying against china and their alleged surveillance and monitoring of u. S. Computer networks. In fact the u. S. Banned the use of equipment from Chinese Technology company huawei, because it fear that is theyre using that, those servers to maybe interrupt and intercept. Now it is get the u. S. Is doing this too, it is taking pressure off china to do anything about what were criticizing them for. Melissa theresa, do you agree with that . If youre a ceo after u. S. Company and watching this and realize this is happening to my company and my business secrets are being stolen . This has to be a wakeup call for all American Business owners. The fbi has estimated we have lost a trillion dollars in Economic Prosperity due to stolen intellectual property. And i think, the one of the things that i call it, the Carbon Monoxide of our economy. It is silent, deadly and we dont realize were in danger until it is too late. American businesses need to think twice how they deal with intellectual property. How do you treat it on Cloud Services . What vendors have access to it . Do you take it overseas . Do you treat it like gold nuggets . That is what American Companies themselves. Melissa morgan, youre a security expert. How do you protect yourself if youre a company. It starts with basic things, not technology related. It starts with the hiring process. Have you screened people properly . Screened against a insider threat. Yellow line on the highway doesnt keep the car on the other side. It is about trust. Trust is not control. Having strong hiring practices, Proper Technology and awareness and audit accountability. A lot of these things are preventible. Nine times out of 10 you could have seen some things coming but have to test technology. Using encryption. They want us to basics so they can, work our weaknesses get exploited when we miss that. Leave it to all three of you thank you. U. S. Every core urn corner of the globe because money is flying around the world with the vatican. Pope francis a auctioning off two Harley Davidsons for charity. The pontiff was given motorcycles last year when the company celebrated its anniversary by sending a gang of hells angels to the holy city. Pope francis gladly accepted them at the time along with a leather biker jacket of course. Now he is signing and selling them all to help a local soup kitchen, each bike is valued at 20,000 bucks. What. Over to nambia where right to hunt endangered black rhino was auctioned off for 350,000 . The shoot to kill permit allows a visitor to kill and hunt down a old nonbreeding rhine know. This is fiercely criticized by Animal Rights groups. I bet. The money will be used to save conservation of species home to the a third of the worlds black rhinos. 3 of only 5,000 left in the wild. Landing in china a local Company Wants to help future parents take the em pick the embryos of their children by picking once that would be most successful in life. A chinese firm says most of what determines i. Q. Could be inherited. Theyre trying to isolate the jean that makes gene that makes children smarter than average. They have thousands of dna samples from adults hoping for a clever kid. Get this. The chinese Staterun Bank has given 1. 5 billion to complete testing. You knew this was coming, right . It is inevitable. Next on money are you vain enough to make impact at work . New Research Shows a bit more time looking in the mirror means a lot more clout with your colleagues. Tweet me, tell me what you think. What type of people get ahead in your office. Have you been drinking coke the wrong way all these years . A fancy new glass promises to give users an even better taste and experience. Do you buy it . Well do a taste test. Do you ever have too much money . Welcome back. How is everything . Theres nothing like being your own boss and my customers a really liking your flat rate shipping. Fedex one rate. Really makes my life easier. Maybe a promotion is in order. Good news. I got a new title. And a raise . 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Start your Business Today with legalzoom. [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. Eartburn relief that neutrales acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. Tum, tum tum tum tums melissa youre so vain you probably think this segment is all about you but seriously, in the vain of being vain, new study says people with big egos are more likely to become leaders than the general population. The question is how big of an ego and how do you strike the balance without being a jerk at the office . Here for todays money talker, attorney jonna spilbor, our very own david asman and work place author, chester elton. David you have strong feelings about this. I have very strong feelings. For a television anchor, ego it is weird to say. Ronald reagan had one sign on his desk, only one. He kept it there before he was president , during and after. He said there is no limit to what you can do if you dont care who gets credit for it. And that kind of philosophy i think is what really will propel people to do great things. Not only people. Melissa you dont think Ronald Reagan had a big egg . He had a healthy ego. People who worked with him were always saying woe always ask, people say, what do you think, mr. President . I have my opinions let me know what you think. Get an opinion from you. I started at wall street journal. Thats where i started in journalism. When i started in 1983 there were no bylines. One view melissa really. No the journal had no bylines. That came later. We couldnt use the word i n any of stories. When institution speaks as a whole melissa newspaper business is dying. I dont know. What do you think . I have a sign on my desk too. There is room for only one diva in here and youre looking at it. Melissa i love it, yes ego is a problem in the work place if you have more than one leader because then those egos start to clash. That is where the problems ensue i think. But if you have one person, i own a law firm. I have 12 empl