Yelp and Google are at it again over Google’s use of Yelp’s user generated reviews. The battle has raged for years, and with Google’s release of their Google Places app, it’s only escalating. Yelp is still unhappy with Google’s use of Yelp’s content in their search results, but Google says: either keep ‘em free or forget about being listed.

No matter how much Yelp kicks and screams, Google isn’t budging an inch.

“We are unhappy with the way Google uses our users’ review on its Places page. However, there is no solution to the problem… Google’s position is that we can take ourselves out of its search index if we don’t want them to use our reviews on Places,” Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s chief executive, told The Telegraph. He continued to say that, although he doesn’t want to give up Yelp’s reviews for free on Google Places pages, not being listed all together is doens’t sound plausible (or pleasant) for the company, either. The catch 22 is that Yelp gets most of their traffic via Google. Oops.

A spokesman for Google refused to comment on the situation with Yelp, but emphasized that everyday, Google sends “millions of customer referrals to local businesses and third party websites, such as review sites, through local search.” A veiled message for Yelp to sit down? Sure sounds like it to me.

In 2009, Google was in talks with Yelp to acquire the review site for $500M. But that never seemed to materialize. Stoppelman is now toying with the idea of going public. Stoppelman bragged that the company is becoming so expensive that it’ll be hard to find a buyer who can afford to front that much dough, adding that going public would more “fun,” anyway.

So, if Yelp is doing so well, why are they complaining about Google Places? Considering that Stoppelman himself admits that it’s thanks to Google that Yelp is doing so well in the first place, maybe Stoppelman should send Google a “Thank You” note, instead.

I have an iPhone and the Google Places app - I have the Yelp app, too, so no bias here - and I opened Google Places to see just what all the drama is about. I searched for Bar Great Harry, a well established and popular bar in Brooklyn. What did I see? Four reviews from City Search, two reviews from Yelp, followed by a review from BlackBook, Zagat and NYmag.com. At the very bottom were a few reviews from Google. Bar Great Harry has 69 reviews in total on Yelp (one of which is from me) - considering that only two were used, seems like a balanced Google search result to me.

Are you on team Yelp or team Google? Do you use Places or Yelp?