Not Only Is Google Places Going After Yelp, They’re Doing So With Yelp’s Content

Earlier today, we noted that an update to Google Maps for Mobile was the clearest sign yet of Google going directly after Yelp . But it's actually even more interesting than we thought. Key to the new Google Maps for Mobile is Places, the new establishment-centric area which Google has been building up for about the past year or so. Places is basically an evolution of Google Local, which had been around for some time to pull in the best content for various local businesses. Previously, with Google Local, Google was using content they licensed to populate their review excerpts area. But apparently, that's no longer the case. Google doesn't have such an agreement with Yelp and yet Yelp content is appearing in Google Places. And not only that, Yelp data often constitutes a lot of the review content.