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Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.is/iIu9L http://archive.is/iIu9L
- JasonFruit 7y agoShort form: the restaurants didn't read the TOS, and they have been treated with more consideration than that document requires. GrubHub has done nothing wrong, and even went out of its way to do the right thing.
- dentemple 7y agoUtilizing a TOS to exploit small businesses in a domain they have little expertise in. "GrubHub has done nothing wrong", indeed.
- Traster 7y agoTerms of service is the wrong term really. These restaurants signed a contract with another business to receive a service. They didn't read the contract. People running businesses shouldn't be signing contracts without at the very least reading the document carefully. These are absolutely not analagous to Terms of Service and businesses do not enjoy consumer protection laws. These contracts just could just as easily said "Grubhub has the right to offer 10% discounts on weekends" - it wouldn't even be unusual.
- jakelazaroff 7y agoWhy do you think "terms of service" is the wrong term? The article refers to it as such multiple times.
- marcosdumay 7y agoTerms of service usually apply to site visitors, not commercial partners.
- throwaway2048 7y agoIf a TOS says that they get your firstborn son, but they settle instead for his arm, they aren't some kind of hero.
- happytoexplain 7y agoIt's difficult to fathom how "you agreed to worse in the TOS" could be considered synonymous with "consideration" and "doing the right thing". It's frankly surreal to see a person suggest it.
- dogecoinbase 7y agoGrubHub has done nothing wrong... Whether or not this is the case is unrelated to what is permitted by law or contract.
- iwantagrinder 7y agoTerrifying how we have people taking the side of a TOS belonging to a shitty gig economy startup over small business owning human beings
- JasonFruit 7y agoIf the human beings don't read the contacts they sign, they won't be owning a business for long. If GrubHub put it in writing, and another business didn't bother to figure out what it was signing, I can't see how it's GrubHub's fault.
- criddell 7y ago> If the human beings don't read the contacts they sign, they won't be owning a business for long. That's bullshit and you know it. They may be naive thinking an internet company like Grub Hub will act decently, but that doesn't make the restaurant operators wrong. It's too bad software developers and startup people don't have to go through a course on ethics to gain certification like professional engineers do.
- JasonFruit 7y agoI really don't know that's bullshit. Please accept the idea that sometimes people might honestly disagree with you.
- tdhoot 7y agoYou mean it's too bad people aren't forced to feel the same way about issues as you do.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoNah, they mean too bad people are allowed to be abusive. Using your ability to outSEO your customer to capture the money that would otherwise go to them is abuse.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jedimastert 7y agoGo and ask the nearest 10 local-business restaurant owners what the sentence: > “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” means. I can guarantee most of them will have no idea what that means. Even if they knew what a "microsite" was, that could mean so many different things anyways. And before you say "then they should have asked a lawyer," 1) yes, but there may not be many lawyers who'd know what that meant either, and 2) there's no way restaurant owners could get that removed from the contract, so they'd basically have to sign anyways or remove a source of revenue. The point being, there's a wide gulf between "it was in the TOS" and "The owners were aware and happy with what was happening"
- Traster 7y agoHere's a crazy idea - they could literally have just e-mailed grubhub asking "Hey, I'm reading through the contract you sent me, could you elaborate on clause X"
- throwaway2048 7y agoDo you think that such obtuse terminology was accidental? I promise you it wasn't.
- whatshisface 7y agoWould they have responded? I can't think of a single time when I had any chance to negotiate a TOS. Besides, even if they changed the onboarding process into an old-style contract negotiation, constantly having to deal with the devil, weeding out his sly contractual tricks, is a cost that can add up in terms of stress and man-hours. Most people would rather just choose business partners that aren't trying to trick them.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Traster 7y agoWe're not talking about negotiating, not at all. You can absoluutely ask them what they mean by a clause and then chose not to sign. I find it kind of funny that people in this comment thread seem to think that Grubhub is something unique as if Uber hasn't been pushing their drivers into poverty for years now. Yes, the terms of the contract are likely to be onerous, that's kind of what these rent-seeking business models are all about.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoIf the TOS are unclear. Contacts favour the weaker non-drafting party.
- loco5niner 7y ago... according to GrubHub
- simonw 7y ago> The second item in terms of service signed by restaurant owners states that Grubhub “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” I would not have realized that "obtain the URL" meant "purchase a domain name" if I read this.
- sokoloff 7y agoWhat else would it mean that would not include the possibility to purchase a domain name for this purpose?
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y agoURL ≠ domain. I would assume it meant that there would be a URL under the other company's domain. Not that they would register a new domain with my branding!
- Stratoscope 7y agoPut yourself in someone else's shoes for a moment... You're a mom and pop restaurant owner. Maybe new to the country. You put all your savings into this. Now you're making your delicious family recipes and people are enjoying them. And paying you! And hopefully coming back for more. You're barely making ends meet, but you hope the business will grow from word of mouth. Now a delivery service comes along. You know your margins will be low on those orders after their cut, but hey, it keeps you busy and maybe you can hire another cook. Pop quiz! What's a "microsite", and what's a "URL"? You may have heard of one of those things, but what is the other? Something from Microsoft? Nonetheless, you need the business, and you sign up because you have a customer waiting for dinner and you have to get back to cooking.
- sokoloff 7y agoSo you need the business, don't have time to get into the details, have a company that takes care of those details for you, brings you an additional volume of orders that you seek, takes the commission they earned and you agreed to, and turns over the domain upon demand. It sounds like a nearly ideal business arrangement to me. I'd be far more troubled about the burying of positive reviews for people who refused to pay for advertising than I am for someone living up to the letter (and I believe the spirit) of the agreement with respect to microsites and domain/URLs.
- floatingatoll 7y agoGrubHub says that restaurants have it wrong by citing fine print. Restaurants want first right of refusal over the use of their brand, not default opt-in by a third party buried in legalspeak. GrubHub is trying to reframe this issue in legalistic terms, to distract from their failure to collect explicit opt-ins from every restaurant they’ve used in this manner. It’s unfortunate that the headline enables that change in perception by readers.
- failrate 7y agoCorrect. GrubHub is typo-squatting, and at best are in some form of trademark violation.
- jeremyjh 7y agoThe article says they turned over the domain to the restaurant on their request. Also it sounds like this is not just fine print; they advertise this service as part of their offering to businesses. Finally, if you are running a business, you cannot plead ignorance on the fine print. You need to read contracts that you sign, or pay a professional to do so.
- floatingatoll 7y agoThe issue here is not "were they authorized to do this?". They were. The issue here is that their actions indicate that they cannot be trusted. Do they require the business owner check a box "Yes" or "No" and initial next to the clause where the business owner authorizes GrubHub to operate their brand without further consent? No, they don't. That they do not implies to business owners that they cannot trust GrubHub. That they refuse to notify business owners when they register a domain using their brand implies to business owners that they cannot trust GrubHub. That their response summarizes as "you signed a multi-page contract that permitted us to do this without notification to you when we do, stop whining about it" implies to business owners that they cannot trust GrubHub. This is why they are so desperate to shift the framing of the argument from "GrubHub broke trust" to "GrubHub was legally authorized to act this way". They aren't willing to change their behavior, and so instead they simply try to reframe the news with a press statement.
- shay_ker 7y agoTo be honest, not a great look from Matt. It's entirely possible that a lot of this was a misunderstanding, since microsites is literally a product feature that GrubHub sales folks use to sell to restaurant owners (among several, several other features that GrubHub provides). One could imagine that this was mainly a communication error, and it could've been fixed by updating GrubHub's sales processes. But Matt saying that restaurants have it wrong? It's just... not a smart thing to do. GrubHub has a symbiotic relationship with restaurant owners, and they gain nothing from insulting restaurant owners.
- wvenable 7y agoThey might have not-insignificant potential revenue losses if they have to remove these micro-sites.
- munk-a 7y agoWelp, it appears they have not-insignificant PR backlash from handling this so poorly. If a restaurant owner wants the domain for their website it'd probably be a real PR win for grubhub to just transfer ownership.
- tdhoot 7y agoThe article says they hand over ownership on demand.
- shay_ker 7y agoBoth GrubHub _and_ restaurants, yes.
- wvenable 7y agoThe restaurants will gain if they take over the microsite and put their own content there because they won't have to pay a fee to GrubHub.
- 7y ago