Serious Indiegogo Question

[deirdre]

For the purposes of this question, let’s assume the following are exactly as stated.

1. Someone puts up an Indiegogo campaign.
2. There are complaints about the campaign, and it’s arguably right on the edge of the TOS boundary.
3. There are contributions to the campaign.
4. The originator tries to cancel the campaign, but is told it must stay open. Like, you know, this one.

Note: the following is not about the linked campaign. The situation just got me thinking.

So, I ask, what’s to stop a campaign runner from deliberately starting an edge-of-TOS campaign, have a friend contribute five bucks, then “have to” keep it running? Using Indiegogo’s TOS against them, effectively?

And how hard does it have to violate the TOS before Indiegogo steps in?

Because I can’t help but think, re the linked campaign above: as it stands, Indiegogo makes $82.80 from it, but if it were all undone and reset, they’d make $0.

Those decisions add up.

Additional thoughts added after posting:

In general, I’m a huge fan of transparency, and I can get that Indiegogo wants to keep the transparency by keeping the campaign page public. I’m okay with that part.

However, I don’t get why the campaign is kept live. It’s possible, that like the Kickstarter campaign with the PUA book (and its brouhaha), that they didn’t have a process to stop it. Which, given how long Indiegogo’s been around, seems weird.

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.