Yelp will let businesses list their vaccination policies
Yelp will let businesses share their policies on COVID-19 vaccinations, the company announced today. There are a pair of new attributes businesses can add to their profiles; one to share whether their staff are fully vaccinated, and one to specify whether customers will be required to provide proof of vaccination. Businesses can list the attributes via their Yelp for Business accounts. allowing users of the service to find places with policies they’re most comfortable with.
The ability to list vaccination policies joins a long list of pandemic-focused features Yelp has added to its service over the past year. Early on in the pandemic, the service let businesses specify whether they offer virtual or contact-free services, and later expanded this to other safety measures like whether they offer outdoor dining, or have a face masks policy for staff.
But some of Yelp’s attempts to help businesses during the pandemic have been less warmly received. In March last year it was forced to reverse a controversial decision to automatically add fundraisers to the pages of tens of thousands of small businesses.
Vaccination policies have become controversial in some circles, so Yelp is also emphasizing the moderation work it does to prevent businesses from being review-bombed as a result of their choices. It says it’s proactively monitoring the pages of businesses that choose to display these policies, and that it will remove reviews that focus on them rather than a customer’s actual experience with a business. Over the course of 2021, Yelp says it’s removed thousands of reviews for violating its COVID Content Guidelines.
Yelp will let businesses share their policies on COVID-19 vaccinations, the company announced today. There are a pair of new attributes businesses can add to their profiles; one to share whether their staff are fully vaccinated, and one to specify whether customers will be required to provide proof of vaccination.…
