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Review site Yelp prices IPO at $15 per share

From Wire Reports

San Francisco-based Yelp Inc. priced its initial public offering of stock at $15 a share on Thursday evening. That’s above its expected range of $12 and $14 per share. The online-review company is selling 7.1 million shares, while its charitable foundation will sell 50,000. Investment bankers also have an option to sell another 1.07 million shares, depending on investor demand.

The offering could raise as much as $123 million before expenses. It values Yelp at $900 million.

Yelp makes money from advertising. Most of the ads come from the local businesses that its users review. In 2011, it booked revenue of $83.3 million, up 74 percent from 2010. It had a net income loss of $16.7 million last year and $9.6 million the year before.

Google privacy policy begins despite protests

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. rolled out its new privacy policy Thursday to renewed protests from data protection authorities in Europe.

Those authorities have concluded that the new policy violates European law, European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told BBC Radio 4.

France’s data protection authority has taken the lead in probing the new policy.

“They have come to the conclusion that they are deeply concerned, and that the new rules are not in accordance with the European law, and that the transparency rules have not been applied,” Reding said, according to Reuters.

European authorities pressed Google to delay its rollout until they can investigate further. Google has declined to do that.

The new policy allows the Internet search giant to share all of the personal data it harvests from users across all of its services from Gmail to YouTube.

Many businesses still closed year after quake

TOKYO – Of about 27,000 Japanese businesses in prefectures affected by last year’s earthquake and tsunami, more than 20 percent have not resumed operations, according to a recent Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

Some have decided to go out of business permanently, heightening the sense of crisis in the region, as local businesses should be a pillar of reconstructing the economy there.

A total of 27,149 commercial and industrial businesses in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima prefectures have been affected by last March’s disaster. Of them, 5,947, or 22 percent, have temporarily or permanently closed, the survey found.