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Yelp backs out of Google's $500 million deal

Tom Warren Neowin @tomwarren · Dec 21, 2009 03:27 EST · Hot! with 20 comments

Last week we reported that Google was set to acquire Yelp for a sweet $500 million.

According to TechCrunch, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman walked away from the deal this weekend just as it was reaching the later stages of negotiation. TechCrunch speculates that another company may have approached Yelp for a strategic deal that would urge Stoppleman to back away from the Google deal.

Yelp is a website that allows members to review local businesses from local nightlife, shopping centers to restaurants and religious organizations. Users can submit reviews and ratings on their experience for other curious shoppers to see. Yelp is available in The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which offers location services to find places near you.

Yelp was founded in 2004 and quickly grew to 9 million unique visitors a month, according to Comscore, but Yelp claims that the numbers are around 25 million unique visitors a month.