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JackC

This article has a little more context: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21196446/yelp-gofundme-co...

Some stuff that was weird about this rollout, from the Verge article:

- opt-out process required sending a scan of your drivers license

- GoFundMe page added a suggested donation of 15% to GoFundMe

- Yelp showed fundraising links for international retail outlets like L'Occitane

Strikes me as something that would be great as an opt-in. As an opt-out, it's understandable that "I'll stop doing this if you send me your drivers license" didn't go over too well, particularly from a company that many small business owners understandably mistrust in the first place.

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I assume the DL was to prevent bob's pizza from cancelling joe's pizza's go fund me.

However the whole thing is despicable on Yelp's part. Then again despicable appears to be a core part Yelp's business plan.

"I assume the DL was to prevent bob's pizza from cancelling joe's pizza's go fund"

I assume they have a concept of "claimed sites". That statement implies they were doing this for sites/properties where they had no idea who owned it. Which makes it even more over the top stupid. That they are collecting funds for an entity which they only have very circumstantial evidence even exists. What a crazy arrogant culture that this idea made it through an approval process.

For example, my wife and I made a fake restaurant on FB out of our backyard for the 3 or 4 gatherings we have a year with friends and family. It ended up on Yelp, through no effort we undertook. It's just our backyard.

Seriously, how did they get around KYC (“Know Your Customer”) and AML ("Anti-Money Laundering") regulations? GoFundMe, as a MSB ("Money Service Business") is required by law to verify their customers' identitues (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...). If Yelp did not provide this information, they both are violating MSB regulations.

Don’t know if gofundme is subject to those but yelp certainly wouldn’t be.

Any business that takes even 1 cent from someone and gives it to someone else is, by the definition provided on the url I shared above, a MSB. GoFundMe certainly is. Yelp is not, but they are culpable by this business business arrangement.

From your link on MSB "for an amount greater than $1,000 per person, per day, in one or more transactions." - so, no.

From my link "a person who engages as a business in the transfer of funds is an MSB as a money transmitter, regardless of the amount of money transmission activity." (emphasis mine)

So, YES. Did you just stop reading after your bias was confirmed?

Ok, we've changed the URL to that from https://sf.eater.com/2020/3/27/21197236/yelp-dna-gofundme-wr.... Thanks!

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