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.

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 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.

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

For our newer viewers he's something of a character, and worked on a few important pieces of software before becoming a bar owner instead.

They are going through a rough time atm with the lock down. If you are in SF and love DNA consider ordering a pizza and/or some cocktails or contributing to their Patreon to help the club get through the shutdown.

Xscreensaver is great though.

Fun documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q7FTjhvZ7Y

1) Owners who aren't active on Yelp may never notice this feature, and so the money is never claimed.

This is big, your customers think they are supporting you and instead they support Yelp.

2) Yelp may be taking a cut? But I can't find any evidence to substantiate this claim.

Even if they were not taking a cut, they can make interest earnings on the parked money.

Personally, I would not allow Yelp to do this on my behalf because I own the relationship with my customers, not Yelp.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-r...

That's likely the whole goal this thing was set up in the first place.

1. It's causing unneeded additional stress to the business owners

2. It causes harm to their reputation

3. It was done without their consent

4. It's being done on a mass basis for [Yelp/GoFundMe's] benefit

5. The process to opt-out is arduous

It doesn't seem like a ridiculous request that you get the owner's consent before you involve them in some kind of business arrangement.

I know there's that whole "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission", but seriously, there are limits to it.

With any luck, they’ll pursue criminal charges and not let them off with a settlement.

It's only fair to make it opt-in, if you're then also getting compensated for it.

I guess it's just in their DNA.

Source - Google "Yelp threatening businesses"

It could also be that they don't have their EIN handy and would need to go to an office somewhere to retrieve it but are unable to visit their lawyer's office due to covid-19?

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Just an added clarification is that the EIN is a federal identification, and a liquor license is usually issued by the city. So a city wouldn't need an EIN in order to issue a liquor license. But unless all your bartenders are 1099, you would need an EIN.

As an alternative theory, it could be that there is a store manager for the bar who doesn't have access to the EIN, if the actual owner was absentee. This happened to me at a company I used to work at. I was the office manager, so I was in charge and responsible for everything and handled 99.9% of it, but once a year or so, I would need the EIN and it was the one time I would have to escalate it to the absentee owner who I didn't see very often.

just a guess

I wouldn't be off on some foul-mouthed rage-fest about the cosmic injustice of it all. Especially not this week.

> However, critics of the partnership fast discovered that GoFundMe was setting the recommended tip, which is how GoFundMe funds its own operations, at 15 percent.

(It's a little frustrating that me and several other early commenters are getting hammered with downvotes because we pointed out how lousy that original article was, context that's now been lost. And unlike the mods, I can't go back and change my post retroactively.)

[1] https://sf.eater.com/2020/3/27/21197236/yelp-dna-gofundme-wr...

I imagine it would be similar to unwittingly having someone set up a GoFundMe page for me as an individual. "Hey let's all help this guy out!" Sure, it's free money, but at some cost to my reputation with some people who would consider it a sign of weakness.

Quite the contrary - jwz does not want his business listed on Yelp. He does not like Yelp, and his blog describes some of the issues.

(Eg, Yelp requires/d "a photo in which your whole face can be seen" while DNA Lounge wanted to use "our logo as the image" - quotes from jwz's blog.)

How would you like me telling everyone that "I'm frank_nitti's best friend", and (honestly) raising money for you, when you don't want me in your life?

wk_end comments about it being "free money".

DNA Lounge already has a Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/dnalounge and a one-time donation page at https://www.dnalounge.com/donate/ .

What happens if an alternative GoFundMe site, auto-generated by Yelp, results in a reduction of the overall donation stream? Then it wouldn't be "free money", would it?

So, who decides if this plan is appropriate for the business?

Hint: not Yelp.

I think the opinion restaurant owners have of yelp ranges from dislike to outright loathing. Yelp has the reputation of being a bully and essentially extorting restaurants for money. Most of the negativity is probably because of that. If it were someone like Google doing it then there'd probably be a lot less outrage.

Most of all, don't claim to represent a business unless you actually represent them.

1) Owners who aren't active on Yelp may never notice this feature, and so the money is never claimed.

2) Yelp may be taking a cut? But I can't find any evidence to substantiate this claim.

Edit: The article has been greatly edited since this post, and any additional points of frustration can be found in the children comments.

I mean, imagine of Facebook tried this and started spamming your friends asking for donations to help you. I can't believe that even in Silicon Valley anyone can be this tone deaf.

Dude's broke AF. https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2016/12/19.html

There were also two failed pizza restaurants involved. One reason, when someone got some money from a startup and asked HN what to do, one of my comments was "Don't buy a restaurant."

Now we have Yelp mooching off a very marginal industry. That's pathetic.

One of the big breakthroughs of the tech boom has been developing new ways to squeeze money out of poor people. Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Grubhub... What "tech"? - they're job shops.

Let's now say I, user himinlomax, set up a fundraiser in your name without telling you. We've never talked before, you don't know who I am, but you notice that I play up how terrible your situation is, and ask people to send ME money on your behalf. Also when you ask me to stop I request a copy of your driving license and a picture of you with a shoe on your head.

How would you feel about that?

Sure, surface-level pride is important for restaurants. But not if they're in the USA in the middle of a pandemic.

I'll also leave this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22704051

3.5) worse if said messaging tied around not wanting donations, but e.g. selling gift cards or other things that give a benefit instead

4) They now have extra work to do that they didn't ask for

5) Yelp claiming "all proceeds going directly to the business" without having set up a channel for proceeds to be transferred

> However, critics of the partnership fast discovered that GoFundMe was setting the recommended tip, which is how GoFundMe funds its own operations, at 15 percent.

No doubt yelp has done some shitty things in the past, but I really don't see how raising funds for distressed businesses could be one of them.

"All the proceeds go directly to the business" also seems unlikely if there wasn't any coordination to set up payouts beforehand.

Am I just missing something? Why wouldn't these businesses want people to help them out in this? Is it just the lack of notification and consent gathering?

Especially when you spend so much time to build an image, a brand, a relationship with your customers, it automatically be associated with a company with such an unethical past, poor brand, etc.... They are ruining years of hard work by the owners without asking them for any sort of consent? I would never want to be associated with Yelp, way more damage to my brand than help.

Yelp does not own the relationship between businesses and customers. I don't understand why this isn't obvious. Hell is full of good intentions.

Hell is full of 15% to GoFundMe without disclosure, and requiring multiple pieces of PII to opt-out.