Two lines we decided not to cross
There are two compliance boundaries we picked before launching Places, both because it's cheaper to design around them than to argue about them after a notice.
One: brands pay GoWith, never companions. If a venue paid a companion to steer bookers there, that would be a material connection under ASCI's influencer guidelines. We avoid the entire category by making it structurally impossible — no endpoint permits it, and the ₹0 agreement says so plainly.
Two: no alcohol offers at launch. State excise advertising rules in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi are sharply different from each other. We would rather not maintain a per-state rule engine for what a bar can offer this month.
What a bar can still do
A venue that serves alcohol can absolutely be a partner. It just can't publish an offer on alcohol. Every offer with 'beer', 'wine', 'cocktail', 'happy hour' or Hindi and Gujarati equivalents in the item name or terms gets rejected server-side, and every offer from an alcohol-serving venue goes through a human review before it can go live.
In practice, bars run offers on food, coffee, seating, or a house dessert. 'Reserved corner table for 90 minutes' is a strong Places offer at a bar in a way that 15% off the pint would never be for us.
“It is cheaper to design around a compliance line than to argue about it after a notice arrives.”
When we might revisit this
When there's a per-state permission map that a partner can pick their state from, and we can hold that map current. Not before.