Yelp expanding alerts for restaurants with low health scores

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Bad restaurant scores are about to get more in your face than ever.

Yelp users in certain cities will have an easier time avoiding restaurants with low health score ratings. The company recently expanded a program that they’ve been testing in San Francisco since 2015.

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The company recently introduced the Health Score Alert systems to Chicago and Los Angeles. The company confirmed to Fox News that the program is designed to make health score information and violations easier to find.

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While Yelp includes a restaurant’s health score on its platform, the program will provide users with a pop-up message alerting them to a bad health score, the Chicago Tribune reports.

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The senior vice president of communications and public affairs for Yelp, Vince Sollitto, told the news outlet that the messages are both a way to warn customers and to nudge businesses to do better.

The alert will reportedly be issued for restaurants with the lowest 1 percent of health scores in their city for the last six months. As new inspection results are posted, the scores will be updated.

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In a statement obtained by Fox News, a spokesperson for Yelp said, “Yelp started by publishing restaurant health inspection scores across the country. In 2015 we decided to take the program one step further in San Francisco by posting warnings on the worst offending businesses due to hygiene. That's worked very well, so last week we've revamped Health Score Alerts and expanded the pilot to Los Angeles and Chicago.”