A blog post from GSA attempts to clarify the status of programs in which members of the public can give feedback regarding their experiences with federal agencies, following reports suggesting that one provider of those services, Yelp, had gained an exclusive arrangement with the government.
Those articles followed Yelp’s announcement that it had concluded a negotiated terms of service agreement “that will allow federal agencies and offices to claim their Yelp pages, read and respond to reviews, and incorporate that feedback into service improvements.”
In response, GSA stressed that Yelp is just one of 80 third-party apps that GSA has made available to agencies through amended terms of service, and just one of a number of citizen feedback options among them. Others include UserVoice, Quora, SurveyMonkey, Survey Analytics, IdeaScale, 4QSurvey.com, and rating systems in Google and Facebook products and services.
“We make a diverse selection of free apps available to agencies so they can evaluate and find the perfect fits that match their individual mission needs–one size does not fit all in the private sector or in public service,” GSA said. It added that “the fact that an app has released federal-compatible terms of service, does not mean all agencies or required to or intend to use them; it means the door is open for agencies to use them . . . as standard practice, GSA does not endorse or encourage the use of any specific tool — we make it available for use and agencies then evaluate and use based on their own needs.”
GSA said it decided to make Yelp in particular available based on interest expressed by some agencies, including for a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration program against impaired driving.
