Zomato also claims copyright/IP of any reviews/content on their site.

Though I am not a 100% sure if just the out of 5 or % number usage counts or not.

I actually posted a question to quora, "Is it legal to use review information from websites to calculate an average score?"

Replied: "In the US, so long as you have the legal right to access the data to begin with (i.e., you didn't crack into someone's system to get it), yes. Simple facts, and things like mathematical analysis of those facts, cannot be copyrighted.

Calculating an average is just a mathematical process. It doesn't require the type of creativity that would allow for copyright."

Link:https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-to-use-review-information-...

Do you know if using info for aggregation violates copyright?

I'm not redistributing or displaying the Yelp ratings. If you look in the app, the Hapibelly rating is displayed, then all the links to the different review platforms are provided.

I did read this: https://www.yelp.com/developers/display_requirements when developing the idea.

I think this might be a concern, depending on how the "hapibelly" score is generated:

>Don’t aggregate or blend our star ratings and review counts with other providers. You may show content from multiple providers, but Yelp data should stand on its own. For example, you may not average Yelp business ratings with other providers to show an overall score.

If you're combining ratings from different platforms, this seems to fall foul of Yelp's developer TOS (and a few others, I believe)

Thanks. I should probably contact Yelp if this app gets any traction.

Also, I think these are just the terms for using the API. I'm not sure if they can do anything if I don't use the API.

Even If Yelp and Foursquare are a no-go, that still leaves 6 other solid review platforms to use.

Yelp and foursquare are useful but not the best. The granularity of rating for Yelp is too big. Over 50% of restaurants are 4.0 stars. (That's why the app is useful) Foursquare is the least used platform with the oldest reviews.

What do you mean you're not using their API? If you're screen scraping the content, you're still violating their terms of service.

"You also agree not to, and will not assist, encourage, or enable others to:"

"Use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other automated device, process or means to access, retrieve, scrape, or index any portion of the Site or any Site Content;"

https://www.yelp.com/static?country=US&p=tos

Curious observer here. Since he's not a Yelp partner or customer or anybody, why does he have to worry about their TOS?

Whether one likes it or not, simply by visiting or looking at a site, you're agreeing to their TOS.

"By accessing or using the Site, you are agreeing to these Terms and concluding a legally binding contract with Yelp Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California ("Yelp"). Do not access or use the Site if you are unwilling or unable to be bound by the Terms."

This article helped clear things up for me.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/07/court-violating-terms-...

Or... what? It says "Do not access or use the Site..." but what would be the penalty for using a site like this outside of the terms of service?

As others have said here, if you're scraping then you're definitely in violation of pretty much every service's TOS, not just their developer one.

If you're not using the API, you won't be contacting Yelp, Yelp will be contacting you, and not in a friendly way.

Perhaps we shouldn't be giving our review data to companies like yelp that lock it up then. The user certainly doesn't gain anything from their contributions being sequestered.

Are there any good open review platforms?

Because it sounds like a pretty good idea. Freely distributable attributed reviews under non exclusive licence is way cooler than a db full of yelp scrapings.

I don't really have any issue with Yelp's terms of service. After all, user reviews are their backbone so I don't blame them for wanting to make sure that any Yelp review information needs to be identified as coming from Yelp / under certain restrictions.

Wouldn't seem fair if Yelp did all the work and any app or platform can simply piggyback off of it and present it as their own, or obscure where it came from.

Agree 100%.

If a user contributes to any platform, the information should be open for all to use. Including FB, instagram, or any review site.

Relevant info: the lawsuit of craigslist vs padmapper and 3taps: "3taps claimed that Craigslist was a public website, so anyone, including 3Taps always had authorization. The court disagreed with this..." (Wikipedia)