Someone built a page in your name. It wasn't you.
A big platform made more than a million donation pages for charities that never asked for them, and the fight reached a courtroom this week. Every small business should check this, because the same kind of page is made about you.
Imagine finding out that a page asking people to pay you has been online for months. It has your name and your logo, and you never made it. The money goes through someone else’s checkout, under someone else’s terms. And when people search for you, it may show up above your own website.
That isn’t a thought experiment. It is roughly what thousands of charities say happened to them, and on Monday it was argued in a US federal court.
What happened
In October last year, one of the biggest online fundraising platforms created donation pages for charities in bulk. According to the New York Attorney General’s office, it made more than 1.4 million of them, without the charities’ knowledge or consent. Many charities only found out after the pages went live.
Regulators raised three concerns:
- The pages’ search optimisation may have pushed them above the charities’ own websites in search results, steering donors away from the official way to give.
- A default “tip” of about 16.5% was reportedly added at checkout, and it went to the platform, not the charity.
- Some pages didn’t make clear when a donation would pass through a separate fund instead of going straight to the charity.
In March, attorneys general and charity regulators from about twenty US states demanded proof that the pages had come down. They also asked the platform to promise that no charity page would be made again without written permission.
“Built with AI,” the lawsuit says
The same month, small charities in Oregon sued. There are now six of them, including a library foundation and a group helping families rebuild after a wildfire. Their lawsuit says the pages were created using AI and used their names and logos without telling them.
They also say the platform refused to take the pages down. To get at any money donated on them, they say, a charity had to “claim” its page and accept the platform’s terms, including fees. The pages were later removed.
The platform disagrees. Its lawyers told the judge that the pages were made to help charities find donors and held only the basic details needed to give. Donors were told where their money would go, any tip was optional and added on top of the donation, and none of the six charities received money through these pages. The judge heard both sides on 26 October and has not yet ruled. These are claims, not findings.
Why this matters if you’ve never run a charity
Look at the platform’s defence. Its lawyers compared these pages to the ones that review sites, map listings and food-delivery apps already create for businesses.
They’re right that it happens. A restaurant, salon or plumber can already have half a dozen pages about it that it never made. Some are useful. Some have the wrong hours, an old phone number or a menu from three years ago. Some take orders or bookings through a system the business never agreed to.
What’s changed is cost. Writing a page about a business, with a description, photos and opening times, used to take a person some time. With AI, a company can produce a million in one go. Pages about you are going to multiply, and mostly nobody will ask you first.
This has been fought before. Restaurants complained for years about delivery apps listing them without permission. Since 2021, California has required a delivery app to have an agreement with a restaurant before it arranges delivery of the restaurant’s food. Charities are now having a similar argument, and regulators are listening.
The page that’s yours
You can’t stop every page about you from existing. You can make sure there is one page that is clearly, provably yours, and that it answers the questions those other pages answer badly:
- Is this really them? Your own name, at your own web address.
- How do I pay, book or order? The real way, on your site, in plain sight.
- Which other places are genuine? Listed by you, so a customer can check.
A customer who finds a strange page in your name should be able to reach your website and know within moments which one to trust.
The fair question
Can devkoi take down pages other people make about my business?
No. devkoi builds and runs your own website. It doesn’t watch the web for copies of your business, it can’t remove listings on other sites, and it can’t promise that your site will appear above them in search. If a page is taking money in your name without your permission, that’s a matter for the platform hosting it, and possibly a lawyer or your local consumer or charity regulator. This post isn’t legal advice.
What devkoi can do is make your own page quickly, keep it correct, and change it whenever you ask in a message.
Your to-do list this week
1. Search for yourself, as a customer would. Search your business name, then your name plus “book”, “order”, “menu” or “donate”. Note every page that takes money or bookings in your name, and which ones you actually agreed to. Ask any you didn’t agree to to correct or remove the page, and keep screenshots with dates.
2. Put your own way to pay or book at the top of your site. If the only obvious button on a search page belongs to someone else, customers will press it.
“Add a clear button at the top of the homepage that says how to book with us directly, and make sure it goes to the right place.”
3. Say where else you can genuinely be found. List the places you have actually agreed to, so a customer can check a page against your own word.
“Add a short section called ‘Where to book or order’ listing the only places customers can pay us, and saying any others weren’t set up by us.”
4. Make your facts the best-kept version. Wrong hours and old numbers on other pages hurt less when your own site is obviously current.
“Check our opening hours, phone number, address and prices across the site and list anything that looks out of date.”
5. Put your site at an address with your name in it. A page on someone else’s web address belongs to them. On devkoi’s paid plans your site can use your own domain, so the official page carries your name in the address bar as well as on the page.
6. Tell your regulars. A one-line note works: “We only take bookings at our own website. If you see us anywhere else asking for money, it isn’t us. Let us know.”
“Add a line to the footer of every page: ‘We only take bookings and payments through this website.’”
Pages about your business will keep multiplying, because making them now costs almost nothing. Make sure the best one is yours.