[tor-talk] Yelp blocking Tor users from viewing entire site

[Yuri]

On 01/27/2015 06:28, Öyvind Saether wrote:
> This is clearly not why they are blocking Tor. Yelp has decided that
> you can't read their website anonymously. If they were blocking http(s)
> POST requests then that would be another story. As someone who has a
> bunch of websites myself I do have some understanding as to why someone
> would block http(s) POST but simply denying people access to read your
> website anonymously is going way further.

Let's say user A wrote the review for business B few months ago, from 
their own networks. Now, they both log into Yelp (using only GET 
requests) from the same IP or net. This business, and possibly the 
reviewer too, will get flagged by Yelp, because Yelp will decide these 
two are likely related. Only because of GET requests from the same net. 
Yelp is very sensitive to this, because too many businesses ask 
customers to write reviews while they are still in the office, show them 
Yelp, ask to open an account, etc. Yelp wants to prevent such things, 
and wants to have access to "real" IPs for that. That is one of the 
reasons they ban tor. Banning only POST requests is what one would do 
when they try to be open about what they are doing. Yelp doesn't try to 
be open, and instead lets you leave the review, then watches people's 
activities and patterns, mines data, and then labels certain reviews as 
not recommended. They also don't hide reviews immediately, only after a 
week or so, when they figure you aren't looking any more. This is 
different philosophy, and much more subtle and secretive approach.

Otherwise, people can access it without login, without cookies, I tried 
few VPNs, it also works fine through them.

Yuri