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Not only ads but these online ordering companies go as far as to setup fake websites under fake domains that make it look like an official website to unsuspecti

Not only ads but these online ordering companies go as far as to setup fake websites under fake domains that make it look like an official website to unsuspecting restaurants that did not have websites. Previously, they would also take these fake websites and use them to claim the official website on the Google Places listing so they can show up at the top without much SEO. But often their fake websites would show up organically and appear as the real website, and then they’d take a 30% fee for “referring” the customer. I learned about this when I was trying to sell an online ordering platform so restaurants could setup their own websites with ordering. The problem was sales was slow and expensive, and small restaurants weren’t savvy enough to understand they’d need to spend a lump sum to setup their websites to fix the problem, or even how or why the problem existed.

qppo 6y ago
Isn't this fraud?
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  It sure feels like it. I don't know whether it's legally fraud, but it feels very icky. I wonder how the product managers and engineers behind this justify it to themselves.
- nickff 6y ago
  Definitely seems like customer deception, and potential misuse/theft of a trademark. I am generally skeptical of class-actions, but this seems like a legitimate subject for a (well-run) class-action lawsuit for the benefit of parties who were actually wronged.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    Sure, but these things don't really get enforced. I mean, one of my current competitors advertises their product as made in USA (which it is not), but only if you use their chat widget to talk to them (which most customers do) in a move I assume is to remove any paper trail. There is no real clear path except maybe ones that involve either bribing a politician or a lobbyist (which may be the same thing) to get this pursued.
- DevKoala 6y ago
  Yes, by the definition of the word. However, is it illegal? The companies mentioned have too much lobbying power; nobody will look into this.
- sneeuwpopsneeuw 6y ago
  In the Nederlands multiple companies have bocome very big by using this trick. Some companies where doing this for some simple SEO improvements. The first site that used this trick to my knowledge was a website called CoolBlue 4 to 5 years ago (a Amazon like that only sells tech) For every category on there site they would claim a new domain name. So they would have ssdstore.nl monotorcenter.nl etc... once this happend many other sites followed. but this time the evil route. A dutch Uber eats like company called "Thuisbezorged" made there signup price really cheap. like 2% of a restaurants income they made on the site was payed for using the platform. you get a personal website with a menu but after a while they started to push this really hard, buying automated domain names that roughly look like the name. And they started to spend google adsence for you sometimes without your knowing. restaurants now pay 30% of what they earn on the website to the platform and there are special rules that prohibit them from doing special offers to lure people to there own site. So it sound like this stuff has already bean going on in the past 5 years, atleast here in the Netherlands it has.
- heyheyhey 6y ago
  Haven't heard of DoorDash or GrubHub doing it but OrderAhead was caught doing it couple years ago: https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue-restaurant-websites-diverting-customers-to-orderahead-deliveries/ https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue-r...
  - chrischen 6y ago
    I know for a fact eat24 did this, and a crappy looking website called Beyond Menu. I'm not sure if GrubHub did this (before the merger). A lot of the times the goals of these sites were to make it look like you were ordering from the restaurant directly, so it was a bit obscured. Order Ahead did this, but only because frankly everyone else was doing it (they definitely didn't spearhead it as a relatively late entrant into the space).
franze 6y ago
When I was traveling south America start of the 2010s, fake websites showed up for every single Colombian hotel on Google. %hotelname%.co Which all we're hosted by different companies wanting to sell you a hotel stay in a random hotel. I tried it a few times in the beginning, and it was a disaster. I asked a Colombia friend about it later, he just laughed and said: Colombians don't visit .co domain. They are all spam. But .com we trust.
shay_ker 6y ago
This isn't accurate. Grubhub merchants pay Grubhub to setup these websites for them. It's an actively sold product to merchants.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  Grubhub was caught creating sites for restaurants that didn't want them. Restaurants has to threaten legal action to get grubhub to stop.
  - shay_ker 6y ago
    This is flat out incorrect. Restaurants can simply ask for the domain to be transferred over. Grubhub was “caught” selling something that merchants sign up for. The suite of products can be complicated, so it’s understandable that people can be confused (the burden is on Grubhub to make things clearer, for sure). But this is not the nefarious act you’re framing it to be.
    - acdha 6y ago
      It’s because what you are saying is factually incorrect. What actually happened is that they set them up and promoted them unrequested. You had to know this was happening and file an opt-out request to get them to stop, which is why they changed their policy later. Similarly, the fake phone numbers were setup without the restaurants’ knowledge until it got attention and laws passed banning the practice. https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-grubhubs-fake-websites.html https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-kn... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-r...
      - shay_ker 6y ago
        Sure, it's "factually incorrect" if you use articles that don't post Grubhub's statement. Here's an article that got updated: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154220/grubhub-seamless-fake-restaurant-domain-names-commission-fees https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154220/grubhub-seamless... Here's the response: > "Grubhub has never cybersquatted, which is identified by ICANN as 'generally bad faith registration of another person’s trademark in a domain name,'" the company said in a statement. "As a service to our restaurants, we have created microsites for them as another source of orders and to increase their online brand presence. Additionally, we have registered domains on their behalf, consistent with our restaurant contracts. We no longer provide that service and it has always been our practice to transfer the domain to the restaurant as soon as they request it." Totally agreed that Grubhub could've clarified this better. SMB Sales is hard, and it's not easy to communicate every aspect of a contract to every single merchant. Not defending phone orders here.
rstupek 6y ago
This happens with other industries as well. I think I remember something about lock smiths having the same issue.
- pbourke 6y ago
  I tried to find a locksmith once via Google. Maps would list a local locksmith with a street address and phone number with local exchange, but the calls all went to one or two centralized numbers. The locations seemed to be fake. It was a very disconcerting way for companies to operate, especially for something as sensitive as house keys.
  - kazz 6y ago
    Reply All has a great episode where they take a deep dive into the super seedy world of locksmith advertising. (https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87)
Dylan16807 6y ago
If there is no official website, then that sounds like a genuine referral to me. And while tricking a company into a referral fee is bad, if the companies weren't signing mystery contracts there wouldn't be a referral fee. They'd get full menu price and be fine.

qppo 6y ago

Isn't this fraud?

AlexandrB 6y ago
It sure feels like it. I don't know whether it's legally fraud, but it feels very icky. I wonder how the product managers and engineers behind this justify it to themselves.
nickff 6y ago
Definitely seems like customer deception, and potential misuse/theft of a trademark. I am generally skeptical of class-actions, but this seems like a legitimate subject for a (well-run) class-action lawsuit for the benefit of parties who were actually wronged.
- chrischen 6y ago
  Sure, but these things don't really get enforced. I mean, one of my current competitors advertises their product as made in USA (which it is not), but only if you use their chat widget to talk to them (which most customers do) in a move I assume is to remove any paper trail. There is no real clear path except maybe ones that involve either bribing a politician or a lobbyist (which may be the same thing) to get this pursued.
DevKoala 6y ago
Yes, by the definition of the word. However, is it illegal? The companies mentioned have too much lobbying power; nobody will look into this.
sneeuwpopsneeuw 6y ago
In the Nederlands multiple companies have bocome very big by using this trick. Some companies where doing this for some simple SEO improvements. The first site that used this trick to my knowledge was a website called CoolBlue 4 to 5 years ago (a Amazon like that only sells tech) For every category on there site they would claim a new domain name. So they would have ssdstore.nl monotorcenter.nl etc... once this happend many other sites followed. but this time the evil route. A dutch Uber eats like company called "Thuisbezorged" made there signup price really cheap. like 2% of a restaurants income they made on the site was payed for using the platform. you get a personal website with a menu but after a while they started to push this really hard, buying automated domain names that roughly look like the name. And they started to spend google adsence for you sometimes without your knowing. restaurants now pay 30% of what they earn on the website to the platform and there are special rules that prohibit them from doing special offers to lure people to there own site. So it sound like this stuff has already bean going on in the past 5 years, atleast here in the Netherlands it has.
heyheyhey 6y ago
Haven't heard of DoorDash or GrubHub doing it but OrderAhead was caught doing it couple years ago: https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue-restaurant-websites-diverting-customers-to-orderahead-deliveries/ https://www.geekwire.com/2015/exclusive-thousands-of-rogue-r...
- chrischen 6y ago
  I know for a fact eat24 did this, and a crappy looking website called Beyond Menu. I'm not sure if GrubHub did this (before the merger). A lot of the times the goals of these sites were to make it look like you were ordering from the restaurant directly, so it was a bit obscured. Order Ahead did this, but only because frankly everyone else was doing it (they definitely didn't spearhead it as a relatively late entrant into the space).

franze 6y ago

When I was traveling south America start of the 2010s, fake websites showed up for every single Colombian hotel on Google. %hotelname%.co Which all we're hosted by different companies wanting to sell you a hotel stay in a random hotel. I tried it a few times in the beginning, and it was a disaster. I asked a Colombia friend about it later, he just laughed and said: Colombians don't visit .co domain. They are all spam. But .com we trust.

shay_ker 6y ago

This isn't accurate. Grubhub merchants pay Grubhub to setup these websites for them. It's an actively sold product to merchants.

colinmhayes 6y ago
Grubhub was caught creating sites for restaurants that didn't want them. Restaurants has to threaten legal action to get grubhub to stop.
- shay_ker 6y ago
  This is flat out incorrect. Restaurants can simply ask for the domain to be transferred over. Grubhub was “caught” selling something that merchants sign up for. The suite of products can be complicated, so it’s understandable that people can be confused (the burden is on Grubhub to make things clearer, for sure). But this is not the nefarious act you’re framing it to be.
  - acdha 6y ago
    It’s because what you are saying is factually incorrect. What actually happened is that they set them up and promoted them unrequested. You had to know this was happening and file an opt-out request to get them to stop, which is why they changed their policy later. Similarly, the fake phone numbers were setup without the restaurants’ knowledge until it got attention and laws passed banning the practice. https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-know-about-grubhubs-fake-websites.html https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-kn... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-r...
    - shay_ker 6y ago
      Sure, it's "factually incorrect" if you use articles that don't post Grubhub's statement. Here's an article that got updated: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154220/grubhub-seamless-fake-restaurant-domain-names-commission-fees https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154220/grubhub-seamless... Here's the response: > "Grubhub has never cybersquatted, which is identified by ICANN as 'generally bad faith registration of another person’s trademark in a domain name,'" the company said in a statement. "As a service to our restaurants, we have created microsites for them as another source of orders and to increase their online brand presence. Additionally, we have registered domains on their behalf, consistent with our restaurant contracts. We no longer provide that service and it has always been our practice to transfer the domain to the restaurant as soon as they request it." Totally agreed that Grubhub could've clarified this better. SMB Sales is hard, and it's not easy to communicate every aspect of a contract to every single merchant. Not defending phone orders here.

rstupek 6y ago

This happens with other industries as well. I think I remember something about lock smiths having the same issue.

pbourke 6y ago
I tried to find a locksmith once via Google. Maps would list a local locksmith with a street address and phone number with local exchange, but the calls all went to one or two centralized numbers. The locations seemed to be fake. It was a very disconcerting way for companies to operate, especially for something as sensitive as house keys.
- kazz 6y ago
  Reply All has a great episode where they take a deep dive into the super seedy world of locksmith advertising. (https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87 https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2ho87)

Dylan16807 6y ago

If there is no official website, then that sounds like a genuine referral to me. And while tricking a company into a referral fee is bad, if the companies weren't signing mystery contracts there wouldn't be a referral fee. They'd get full menu price and be fine.