5 ms·

I can't see any way this will be abused.

crsv 8y ago
I'm curious if it will have a commercialization model similar to Yelp! - a la "extortion as a service", wherein the business owners have to pony up to defend themselves against potentially false allegations.
- paddoq 8y ago
  We are not attacking them, nor are the public health agencies, so hopefully they do not feel the need to defend. Also given we roll reports off the site after 30 days we believe there is less of a concern from that perspective. We are not a permanent record like Yelp or other platforms. Naturally they do have to pay if they want to get any of the features and services we offer to help strengthen their food safety program, but we are presenting ourselves as a partner not an advesary.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Yes it's not extortion. It's protection.
    - paddoq 8y ago
      Exactly. This is one topic where everyone is on the same page, people don't want to get sick, restaurants don't want to make them sick. We are helping restaurants to do better on their most important core objective.
      - afdfwge 8y ago
        Woosh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket
peterkelly 8y ago
This. On the one hand, alerting potential customers to genuine cases of food poisoning is a good thing. You can reduce the instances of people getting sick. Great! On the other hand, you've now created an incredibly easy way for competitors, disgruntled former employees, or anyone who doesn't like a particular restaurant to mount a libellous campaign of false reports. I understand you review reports and look for multiple instances to see if it's more than just one. But it seems it would be incredibly easy to fool any such system with a bit of coordination between a handful of people. And it's their word against the restaurant's; how do you know who is really telling the truth? (and the restaurant may not even know about the accusation until they find out from your app). Crowdsourcing can sometimes be effective, but there's been numerous examples of it going wrong, and businesses or individuals being unfairly harmed by accusations that turned out to be incorrect. I hope you've got a pretty good team of lawyers to defend yourself in cases where you get the moderation process wrong, bankrupting a restaurant, and leading them to sue you.
- paddoq 8y ago
  We have not and will not accuse anyone of anything. From a legal perspective, nothing new to see here, people have been posting reports of food poisoning on social media for years, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook so on. We are just enabling it in a way that more easily facilitates positive outcomes. As for a truly negative outcome e.g. a pronouncement by a public health agency that Restaurant X caused a foodborne illness outbreak. This is not possible with a handful of people, as it requires microbiologists, epidemiologists, environmental health experts so on. Unless that handful of people can credibly fool the science, and all these expert participants. We do have a great law firm, and we are advised as long as we remain a platform for people to report there is zero risk, and this has been tested many times by companies with deep pockets.
  - paddoq 8y ago
    ps. Not tested on us. We have never been approached once by a large organization, or their law firm

crsv 8y ago

I'm curious if it will have a commercialization model similar to Yelp! - a la "extortion as a service", wherein the business owners have to pony up to defend themselves against potentially false allegations.

paddoq 8y ago
We are not attacking them, nor are the public health agencies, so hopefully they do not feel the need to defend. Also given we roll reports off the site after 30 days we believe there is less of a concern from that perspective. We are not a permanent record like Yelp or other platforms. Naturally they do have to pay if they want to get any of the features and services we offer to help strengthen their food safety program, but we are presenting ourselves as a partner not an advesary.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Yes it's not extortion. It's protection.
  - paddoq 8y ago
    Exactly. This is one topic where everyone is on the same page, people don't want to get sick, restaurants don't want to make them sick. We are helping restaurants to do better on their most important core objective.
    - afdfwge 8y ago
      Woosh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket

peterkelly 8y ago

This. On the one hand, alerting potential customers to genuine cases of food poisoning is a good thing. You can reduce the instances of people getting sick. Great! On the other hand, you've now created an incredibly easy way for competitors, disgruntled former employees, or anyone who doesn't like a particular restaurant to mount a libellous campaign of false reports. I understand you review reports and look for multiple instances to see if it's more than just one. But it seems it would be incredibly easy to fool any such system with a bit of coordination between a handful of people. And it's their word against the restaurant's; how do you know who is really telling the truth? (and the restaurant may not even know about the accusation until they find out from your app). Crowdsourcing can sometimes be effective, but there's been numerous examples of it going wrong, and businesses or individuals being unfairly harmed by accusations that turned out to be incorrect. I hope you've got a pretty good team of lawyers to defend yourself in cases where you get the moderation process wrong, bankrupting a restaurant, and leading them to sue you.

paddoq 8y ago
We have not and will not accuse anyone of anything. From a legal perspective, nothing new to see here, people have been posting reports of food poisoning on social media for years, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook so on. We are just enabling it in a way that more easily facilitates positive outcomes. As for a truly negative outcome e.g. a pronouncement by a public health agency that Restaurant X caused a foodborne illness outbreak. This is not possible with a handful of people, as it requires microbiologists, epidemiologists, environmental health experts so on. Unless that handful of people can credibly fool the science, and all these expert participants. We do have a great law firm, and we are advised as long as we remain a platform for people to report there is zero risk, and this has been tested many times by companies with deep pockets.
- paddoq 8y ago
  ps. Not tested on us. We have never been approached once by a large organization, or their law firm