If this is a business account why do they want your passport? And why are you paying with a personal bank card rather than a business one? Or do I misunderstand?

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__float 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They may want proof that you, the human filling out this form, are authorized to publish apps, communications, etc. as the company you say you represent.

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fc417fc802 6 hours ago | parent [-]

How does a passport solve that? Most small private companies are entirely opaque. A government ID doesn't help you determine authorization. It won't even help you determine ownership since anyone doing things sensibly will be using a registered agent to hold the company on his behalf.

The correct approach here (AFAIK) is to punt the trust decision to the bank by requiring payment with a method that you can confidently trace to the company.

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mrtksn 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My government ID card expired and I was too lazy to renew it but I had my passport at hand so why not?

BTW both the id card and the passport have cryptographic authentication and you are able to open a bank account or use govt services completely online by scanning it with the phone Rfid . They could have make me scan that, scan my face and be done with the identity verification. My identity is already verified and tied to my company the same way and also listed in the companies registry which means they could have had skipped all the other company verification stuff too.

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kube-system 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah I would imagine that the value the get out of a passport is not anything to do with validating a company (they’re cheap and easy to make anyway) but validating the person (which is not a throwaway entity)

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fc417fc802 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Fair point.

However that invites those bad scenarios where someone gets blacklisted by BigTech in some manner, later gets hired by a small business, the new employer adds an association to the blacklisted account, and suddenly the company app is banned from the app store seemingly without reason. At least a few such stories have appeared on HN over the years.

I feel like pay to play ought to be sufficient because in addition to being a barrier to entry it also provides funds for moderation efforts.

	▲	kube-system 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are better ways to do it but Google has long demonstrated they’re not primarily concerned with accuracy or user experience, but instead, whichever solution can be automated and effective.

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nandomrumber 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s entirely ordinary to carry on a business as a sole trader.

That is you, for tax and legal purposes in the jurisdictions within which you reside, an individual, operating a business by yourself as yourself.