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)