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Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

403 points by cwwc 6y ago

glasss 6y ago
At the size / scale of grubhub, it will always be cheaper to do unethical things for money now versus settling out of court later. Knowing someone that used to do sales at grubhub, this doesn't surprise me at all. The company that person currently works at is probably doing the same, because if you can get away with it, why not? Worst thing that happens to the people who put those policies in place is they find another job.
- thrownaway954 6y ago
  i'll go even further... the other thing about it is that the owner has to have the money is order to bring the lawsuit to court. also, depending on how backed up the courts are, it could be years before the case brought into court by which time the owner could be out of business. it really is horrible how screwed up our civil court system is.
  - ciarannolan 6y ago
    Are the courts "backed up", or is the process of discovery and everything else leading up to a trial/judgement just a necessarily long one?
    - thrownaway954 6y ago
      the point i was trying to make is that it for any reason, the case can be delayed in getting to court. i've personally seen cases take 10 years to finally get to court only to have the case dismissed.
julianlam 6y ago
I'll admit I don't know the full story behind grubhub's practices with adding restaurants without the owners' permission. It does sound like a case of "fake it till you make it", in a sense that adding restaurants without the owners' consent would be a way around the chicken and egg problem. Not saying it's a particularly nice thing to do, I'd be super annoyed if it happened to me
- jdmichal 6y ago
  I'm curious why they would need the owner's permission for listing? I can understand the issues around things like the alleged practice of replacing the businesses' information. But the idea of just having a third-party delivery service acting as a middle-man... The restaurant is still getting paid whatever they charged. I don't understand why they would get a say anymore than, say, a book store regarding me reselling books I bought on eBay.
  - pavel_lishin 6y ago
    In this analogy, it would be more like you creating an eBay store called "Strand Books", listing the entire Strand Books' catalog, and then when someone purchases a book from you, popping into The Strand to get the book and shipping it to them. Except sometimes they're out of the book, and so the customer never receives it. Or you damage the book between the book store and the post office, and they receive a badly damaged book. The customer is going to be mad at the Strand, not at you. You'd be damaging their reputation.
    - jdmichal 6y ago
      But the customers are ordering the food from Grubhub, no? So why would they be confused that there's a middle-man?
      - buckminster 6y ago
        A middle man is responsible to the consumer. A subcontractor is not. Grubhub does not tell the consumer whether they are acting as a subcontractor or middle man for a particular restaurant. This is deceptive and harms the restaurants who do not subcontract Grubhub.
        jdmichal 6y ago
        I can buy this, if the customer is ordering directly from the restaurant and Grubhub delivers that order. Because that's what a subcontractor relationship looks like; you the customer only deal with the primary contractor. But if I order from Grubhub, I am explicitly asking them to be a middle man, no?
redwall_hp 6y ago
DoorDash does this too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 In many cases, it can hurt the reputation of restaurants. Maybe your food doesn't travel well, or you don't have the capacity to handle orders beyond what you have physical seating for...
- tartoran 6y ago
  Absolutely! Bad reviews because of the delivery service impacts the said restaurant. This type of middleman service should be optional IMO.
doytch 6y ago
What's the "best" ordering app to use these days if I want to prioritize how well they treat restaurants? I've tried looking this up recently to no avail. I know at the end of the day, "call and pick-up directly" is going to be it but occasionally I just don't want to go pick it up.
- jetpackjoe 6y ago
  Not all restaurants have their own website, but a lot do, and you can order online there.
  - RHSeeger 6y ago
    Of course, some apparently have fake websites setup by grubhub to mislead customers. > Grubhub is using thousands of fake websites to upcharge commission fees from real businesses > They also list phone numbers that don’t belong to the actual business 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...
- deleted 6y ago
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- okprod 6y ago
  I don't know if there's a best one. I've been using online ordering since Foodler days, and they seem to all be getting worse. Grubhub almost always sticks to a $5 credit even if the problem with the other is much more than $5. I routinely place an order on Postmates thinking everything's fine, and then they cancel due to not having someone go pick it up. Why list the restaurant at all? Just last week, my Uber Eats order was missing a sandwich. This was probably the third order in a row where the restaurant didn't include an item as part of the order, with a fourth order containing a pubic hair in the food. For the missing sandwich, Uber refused to refund the one item, citing my account was flagged. After multiple levels of customer service, yeah, they just refused to refund me for a sandwich I never received. It's only $6 and frankly I just disputed it with my credit card, but the principle just sucks. I was halfway to creating a Twitter account to message Dara to ask if this is the new Uber he promised.
s_dev 6y ago
Trading under another brands name -- by listing them as an ordering place with an unofficial dark kitchen associated in your app -- seems like the most egregious form of trade mark infringement. Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this?
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Because "justice" in the US is not about who's right and who's wrong, it's about who's got the most money and resources to pursue a lawsuit.
  - lallysingh 6y ago
    At some point the question of "who is actually right, and who is actually wrong" has to be answered through the work of people. Those people have to be paid. For criminal work, that's taxpayers footing the bill -- sometimes just for one side. For civil, the government provides a judge and the rest has to be paid for privately. It's not awful, but it can be so inefficient that it can break down due to resource exhaustion, or worse, a vector for abuse.
- mrguyorama 6y ago
  >Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this? When is the last time a company was SERIOUSLY threatened by the repercussions of doing something illegal in the US? When was the last time a company was fined/sued out of existence for something they were doing to average people?
  - sharkweek 6y ago
    All I know is I’m still waiting for my Equifax settlement check. Any day now, I’m sure!
    - the_only_law 6y ago
      Heh, in the state I used to live in there was a huge controversy regarding a power company, corrupt politicians, amassive infrastructure project failure who's cost was passed on the the consumer, and strange mergers . People were promised compensation and the the three cent checks eventually trickled in.
codenesium 6y ago
They should lose their ass for this. It hurts the reputation of small restaurants when the food isn't good and it might not even be their fault. Shouldn't there be some kind of health code rules for food delivery?
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The “place and pay” orders the lawsuit describes are new to me. I’d always kinda held the position that saying “We’ll deliver you food from Lou’s Diner” doesn’t necessarily imply you’re affiliated. But if Grubhub is telling drivers to disguise themselves because restaurants wouldn’t accept the order if they knew it was from Grubhub, that seems pretty clearly unethical.
- karatinversion 6y ago
  The legal basis of the linked class-action is the Trademark Act of 1946, and the claim is that Grubhub has infringed on the claimants' trademarks by presenting itself as acting in cooperation with the affected restaurants, even though it has actually been acting unilaterally. So the claim is less a middle man saying "We'll deliver you food from Lou's Diner", and more putting out ads for Lou's Diner with their own phone number in and delivering from Lou's Diner
- deleted 6y ago
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mabbo 6y ago
I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when customers call to complain, I'll play an ad for the competitor who has paid me the most money. Seems only fair, right?
- acoard 6y ago
  Unless I'm missing something, the substantive difference hereis that GrubHub is still ordering from the restaurant that the customer is ordering from. Your comparison of pretending to offer GrubHubHelp but then going to competitors is like if I ordered McDonalds, and you brought me pasta. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    > I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant. The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission to list the business on their site and it borders on abusive behavior. The said business may have an ordering system already or a phone number to order because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub. Why they don't simply ask for permission? Because some restaurants wouldn't give it and Grubhub forces their hand. I think this is what this lawsuit is about.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission But nothing says they have to as far as I know? Do you have to ask permission from an author before you resell a book you own? > because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub They don't have to share a cut in this case. The restaurant still gets the full retail price that they set. Grubhub marks up on top of that or takes it as a loss as I understand. > Why they don't simply ask for permission? They don't want to. Do they need any more reason than that?
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chrisshroba 6y ago
Tbh I don't see a major problem with this. If folks want to pay someone (Grubhub) to go pick up food for them, why should the restaurants be allowed to say no? > Food may not travel well. Fair point, but if the customer still wants it, that's on them. > But that may lead to unfairly low ratings for the restaurant. If (say) 30% of the restaurant's patrons choose to get the food via food delivery, why shouldn't those folks' ratings of the food be factored into the restaurant's rating? > If people want food and the restaurants doesn't want to support delivery apps, then folks should respect that and visit the restaurant in person. Many people aren't able to visit in person, either due to time constraints, mobility constraints, COVID precautions, or other reasons. > Restaurants may not be able to handle the additional load placed on them by these services. I empathize with this one and don't really have a rebuttal. > Delivery services sometimes make their own websites and phone numbers more prominent than the restaurant's own, deceiving people into using them instead of going straight to the restaurant's site/number. I agree, this is a horrible tactic and aggregators like Google and Yelp should work to prevent this. ------ These are just the opinions of me, a privileged engineer who has little knowledge of the restaurant industry, so I definitely welcome any criticism to my points and am certainly open to changing my view!
- CJefferson 6y ago
  I think the main problem is grubhub don't make it clear that this isn't "officially supported". Imagine someone set up a website claiming to sell your services, without making it obvious they have nothing to do with you, then after accepting jobs would ask you to do them (ok, this comparision doesn't quite work, but I think it gets the basic idea).
- hobofan 6y ago
  > why shouldn't those folks' ratings of the food be factored into the restaurant's rating? Because a lot of people are not capable of differentiating between product and delivery, and poor delivery (which they have no control over in this case) shouldn't result in low ratings. Have you ever looked at Amazon reviews? A good chunk of them seems to purely give their stars based on delivery.
- zpeti 6y ago
kbos87 6y ago
In a similar situation, the alcohol delivery service Drizly received a ton of backlash for buying ads on the brand terms of a Black-owned wine shop in Boston that they had no affiliation with. When buyers understand how platforms do this, they are pretty clear that they don’t agree with it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CGpUGbuAc-q/?igshid=1u5yor18vch0y https://www.instagram.com/p/CGpUGbuAc-q/?igshid=1u5yor18vch0...
rjyoungling 6y ago
This was an "accident" waiting to happen.
code4tee 6y ago
A lot of companies do things like this where they pretend to be another company to scoop in business as a middleman. Recently googled a tradesperson and called the number on the top result that came up. It quickly became clear that I wasn’t talking to the outfit I was trying to call but someone trying to insert themselves in the middle and collect a fee. When I grilled them it became clear what was going on. I eventually hung up and found a new number which put me in touch with the company directly. When I told them what happened they were like “yeah (insert name of one stop shop for home repairs) has been doing this... we have nothing to do with them but they keep trying to pretend we work with them and put out adverts under our name.” Super frustrating and I can sympathize with the restaurants where the same sort of thing seems to be happening. The likes of Google could of course police this a lot better but they’re happy to take the money for the ads.
tantalor 6y ago
The result will depend on difference between "could harm" and "actually did harm".
MangoCoffee 6y ago
another example of "silicon valley disruption" operate in the gray area. not sure why Grubhub think they can just add whoever they wanted into their listing without asking. we've seem this kind of "silicon valley disruption" with AirBnB, Uber...etc. its no wonder these companies needs massive amount of money to deal with lawsuit like this or govrt.
bckygldstn 6y ago
The lawsuit [1] lists the following Factual Allegations: • Gruhub tells consumers it’s working cooperatively with restaurants • Grubhub decides to add unaffiliated restaurants to its website and mobile apps without the restaurants’ permission • Grubhub’s unauthorized use of restaurants’ names and logos misleads consumers and harms restaurants • Restaurants have good reasons for choosing not to work with Grubhub ◦ Grubhub knows restaurants don’t want its business and tells drivers to disguise their affiliation with Grubhub ◦ Consumers continue to believe restaurants on Grubhub are working cooperatively with Grubhub ◦ Customer confusion leads to poor experiences that hurt restaurants’ hard-earned reputations ◦ Grubhub diverts and impairs demand for local restaurants • Grubhub knows it is harming restaurants and uses that harm to force restaurants into unwanted partnerships [1] https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Class-Action-Lawsuit-Gibbs-Law-Group.pdf?x76150 https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Cla...
- judge2020 6y ago
  Sounds like an open-and-shut case, but GH has the backing of SV lawyers so chances are it'll drag on for 3 years or end in settlement.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  A counter point is that an individual is free to hire someone to go and pick up food from a restaurant on their behalf and it does not make any difference to the restaurant. I suspect that what restaurants fear, though, is that Grubhub is trying to grab as much marketshare as possible then once they are in a position of strength they'll go and demand a commission from the restaurants, or else...
  - staplers 6y ago
    an individual is free to hire someone to go and pick up food from a restaurant on their behalf They are commercially advertising names, logos, menus, etc not taking random orders from people.
    - 6y ago
tartoran 6y ago
I have a friend with a small restaurant business and learned about some of the sketchy things grubhub does . Some people order food, my friend's business delivers the food and a few hours after the food was delivered the order is cancelled. Grubhub refunds the money to the person who ordered and refuses to do absolutely anything about it for the business. He filmed on his phone when dropping the food, handing it to a customer and Grubhub shrugs their shoulders. They suggested he creates a a black list of numbers+addresses to refuse orders but that isn't fool proof, the sketchy customers use different numbers and order at a slightly different address and wait outside for it. They may add numbers to a black list as well but some of these bad customers use burner phones. So a big problem with these middleman services is that control is completely ceded to the middleman and one can't really do anything about it. It is extremely frustrating for business owners, but probably not as bad for the customers. This type of competition a la Grubhub/Amazon will kill a lot of legitimate business and create their own generic services instead. It is a subjugating experience and business owners don't feel that they are control of their own destiny. It saddens me that this trend doesn't seem to get any better but only exacerbate over time.
aurizon 6y ago
This is a one-at-a-time identity theft racket that can be combined with assorted stolen SSN etc, via address matching as well as the genuine credit card number for the order. I expect this resource is already being mined by various crime gangs. It is well distributed so it acts like broadband system 'noise' = harder to find and footprint analyze. Of course, the gangs know all about data footprints and how to obfuscate them.
insidepgsmind 6y ago
From what I understand this was Casey Winters who spearheaded this?
amdelamar 6y ago
Imagine if a site like AppleiPhone.com was setup and selling iPhones as a front to Apple.com, complete with their own shopping menu and phone number that they owned instead of Apple.
hinkley 6y ago
We finally started driving across town to get carry-out once we realized how big a difference in cost it was. Not only is there a fee but I think they're also inflating prices, and for some restaurants they kept getting the order wrong. Plus the tip goes to their driver, not the restaurant. I mean yeah, props to the driver driving all over getting my food, but I want my guilt money to go to the cooks, who are breathing each other's air in a kitchen so I can stress eat, just feeling lucky they still have a job at all.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
I’m not an expert in this area, and IANAL, so... When I started a business (is the USA) that had a name that wasn’t mine, I needed to file a DBA (doing business as) form in my city. If GrubHub is representing themselves as SomeRestaurantIncorporated without some legal mechanism for doing so, like a DBA, I don’t see how they can justify it.
actiondoes 6y ago
Would love to find a search engine that does not give any results from intermediaries like grubhub and yelp. Let me find the restaurants and judge them for myself based on their service

403 points by cwwc 6y ago

At the size / scale of grubhub, it will always be cheaper to do unethical things for money now versus settling out of court later. Knowing someone that used to do sales at grubhub, this doesn't surprise me at all. The company that person currently works at is probably doing the same, because if you can get away with it, why not? Worst thing that happens to the people who put those policies in place is they find another job.

thrownaway954 6y ago
i'll go even further... the other thing about it is that the owner has to have the money is order to bring the lawsuit to court. also, depending on how backed up the courts are, it could be years before the case brought into court by which time the owner could be out of business. it really is horrible how screwed up our civil court system is.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  Are the courts "backed up", or is the process of discovery and everything else leading up to a trial/judgement just a necessarily long one?
  - thrownaway954 6y ago
    the point i was trying to make is that it for any reason, the case can be delayed in getting to court. i've personally seen cases take 10 years to finally get to court only to have the case dismissed.

julianlam 6y ago

I'll admit I don't know the full story behind grubhub's practices with adding restaurants without the owners' permission. It does sound like a case of "fake it till you make it", in a sense that adding restaurants without the owners' consent would be a way around the chicken and egg problem. Not saying it's a particularly nice thing to do, I'd be super annoyed if it happened to me

jdmichal 6y ago
I'm curious why they would need the owner's permission for listing? I can understand the issues around things like the alleged practice of replacing the businesses' information. But the idea of just having a third-party delivery service acting as a middle-man... The restaurant is still getting paid whatever they charged. I don't understand why they would get a say anymore than, say, a book store regarding me reselling books I bought on eBay.
- pavel_lishin 6y ago
  In this analogy, it would be more like you creating an eBay store called "Strand Books", listing the entire Strand Books' catalog, and then when someone purchases a book from you, popping into The Strand to get the book and shipping it to them. Except sometimes they're out of the book, and so the customer never receives it. Or you damage the book between the book store and the post office, and they receive a badly damaged book. The customer is going to be mad at the Strand, not at you. You'd be damaging their reputation.
  - jdmichal 6y ago
    But the customers are ordering the food from Grubhub, no? So why would they be confused that there's a middle-man?
    - buckminster 6y ago
      A middle man is responsible to the consumer. A subcontractor is not. Grubhub does not tell the consumer whether they are acting as a subcontractor or middle man for a particular restaurant. This is deceptive and harms the restaurants who do not subcontract Grubhub.
      - jdmichal 6y ago
        I can buy this, if the customer is ordering directly from the restaurant and Grubhub delivers that order. Because that's what a subcontractor relationship looks like; you the customer only deal with the primary contractor. But if I order from Grubhub, I am explicitly asking them to be a middle man, no?

redwall_hp 6y ago

DoorDash does this too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852 In many cases, it can hurt the reputation of restaurants. Maybe your food doesn't travel well, or you don't have the capacity to handle orders beyond what you have physical seating for...

tartoran 6y ago
Absolutely! Bad reviews because of the delivery service impacts the said restaurant. This type of middleman service should be optional IMO.

doytch 6y ago

What's the "best" ordering app to use these days if I want to prioritize how well they treat restaurants? I've tried looking this up recently to no avail. I know at the end of the day, "call and pick-up directly" is going to be it but occasionally I just don't want to go pick it up.

jetpackjoe 6y ago
Not all restaurants have their own website, but a lot do, and you can order online there.
- RHSeeger 6y ago
  Of course, some apparently have fake websites setup by grubhub to mislead customers. > Grubhub is using thousands of fake websites to upcharge commission fees from real businesses > They also list phone numbers that don’t belong to the actual business 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...
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okprod 6y ago
I don't know if there's a best one. I've been using online ordering since Foodler days, and they seem to all be getting worse. Grubhub almost always sticks to a $5 credit even if the problem with the other is much more than $5. I routinely place an order on Postmates thinking everything's fine, and then they cancel due to not having someone go pick it up. Why list the restaurant at all? Just last week, my Uber Eats order was missing a sandwich. This was probably the third order in a row where the restaurant didn't include an item as part of the order, with a fourth order containing a pubic hair in the food. For the missing sandwich, Uber refused to refund the one item, citing my account was flagged. After multiple levels of customer service, yeah, they just refused to refund me for a sandwich I never received. It's only $6 and frankly I just disputed it with my credit card, but the principle just sucks. I was halfway to creating a Twitter account to message Dara to ask if this is the new Uber he promised.

s_dev 6y ago

Trading under another brands name -- by listing them as an ordering place with an unofficial dark kitchen associated in your app -- seems like the most egregious form of trade mark infringement. Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this?

Nextgrid 6y ago
Because "justice" in the US is not about who's right and who's wrong, it's about who's got the most money and resources to pursue a lawsuit.
- lallysingh 6y ago
  At some point the question of "who is actually right, and who is actually wrong" has to be answered through the work of people. Those people have to be paid. For criminal work, that's taxpayers footing the bill -- sometimes just for one side. For civil, the government provides a judge and the rest has to be paid for privately. It's not awful, but it can be so inefficient that it can break down due to resource exhaustion, or worse, a vector for abuse.
mrguyorama 6y ago
>Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this? When is the last time a company was SERIOUSLY threatened by the repercussions of doing something illegal in the US? When was the last time a company was fined/sued out of existence for something they were doing to average people?
- sharkweek 6y ago
  All I know is I’m still waiting for my Equifax settlement check. Any day now, I’m sure!
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    Heh, in the state I used to live in there was a huge controversy regarding a power company, corrupt politicians, amassive infrastructure project failure who's cost was passed on the the consumer, and strange mergers . People were promised compensation and the the three cent checks eventually trickled in.

codenesium 6y ago

They should lose their ass for this. It hurts the reputation of small restaurants when the food isn't good and it might not even be their fault. Shouldn't there be some kind of health code rules for food delivery?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

The “place and pay” orders the lawsuit describes are new to me. I’d always kinda held the position that saying “We’ll deliver you food from Lou’s Diner” doesn’t necessarily imply you’re affiliated. But if Grubhub is telling drivers to disguise themselves because restaurants wouldn’t accept the order if they knew it was from Grubhub, that seems pretty clearly unethical.

karatinversion 6y ago
The legal basis of the linked class-action is the Trademark Act of 1946, and the claim is that Grubhub has infringed on the claimants' trademarks by presenting itself as acting in cooperation with the affected restaurants, even though it has actually been acting unilaterally. So the claim is less a middle man saying "We'll deliver you food from Lou's Diner", and more putting out ads for Lou's Diner with their own phone number in and delivering from Lou's Diner
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mabbo 6y ago

I hope there's a strong precedent set here. Companies like Grubhub list restaurants on their site/app, but put the wrong phone number on it- one that goes to their own people instead. That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. Makes me feel like I should setup a phone number and a website called something like "GrubhubHelp.com", and list a help number for assistance with GrubHub orders. Then when customers call to complain, I'll play an ad for the competitor who has paid me the most money. Seems only fair, right?

acoard 6y ago
Unless I'm missing something, the substantive difference hereis that GrubHub is still ordering from the restaurant that the customer is ordering from. Your comparison of pretending to offer GrubHubHelp but then going to competitors is like if I ordered McDonalds, and you brought me pasta. I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant.
- tartoran 6y ago
  > I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with what GrubHub is doing, but I could see them needing to clearly note the relationship. There are lots of personal shopping/delivery services which phone in orders and go pick something up without having a pre-existing relationship with the restaurant. The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission to list the business on their site and it borders on abusive behavior. The said business may have an ordering system already or a phone number to order because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub. Why they don't simply ask for permission? Because some restaurants wouldn't give it and Grubhub forces their hand. I think this is what this lawsuit is about.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > The problem is that Grubhub is not asking permission But nothing says they have to as far as I know? Do you have to ask permission from an author before you resell a book you own? > because they simply don't to share a hefty cut with Grubhub They don't have to share a cut in this case. The restaurant still gets the full retail price that they set. Grubhub marks up on top of that or takes it as a loss as I understand. > Why they don't simply ask for permission? They don't want to. Do they need any more reason than that?

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chrisshroba 6y ago

Tbh I don't see a major problem with this. If folks want to pay someone (Grubhub) to go pick up food for them, why should the restaurants be allowed to say no? > Food may not travel well. Fair point, but if the customer still wants it, that's on them. > But that may lead to unfairly low ratings for the restaurant. If (say) 30% of the restaurant's patrons choose to get the food via food delivery, why shouldn't those folks' ratings of the food be factored into the restaurant's rating? > If people want food and the restaurants doesn't want to support delivery apps, then folks should respect that and visit the restaurant in person. Many people aren't able to visit in person, either due to time constraints, mobility constraints, COVID precautions, or other reasons. > Restaurants may not be able to handle the additional load placed on them by these services. I empathize with this one and don't really have a rebuttal. > Delivery services sometimes make their own websites and phone numbers more prominent than the restaurant's own, deceiving people into using them instead of going straight to the restaurant's site/number. I agree, this is a horrible tactic and aggregators like Google and Yelp should work to prevent this. ------ These are just the opinions of me, a privileged engineer who has little knowledge of the restaurant industry, so I definitely welcome any criticism to my points and am certainly open to changing my view!

CJefferson 6y ago
I think the main problem is grubhub don't make it clear that this isn't "officially supported". Imagine someone set up a website claiming to sell your services, without making it obvious they have nothing to do with you, then after accepting jobs would ask you to do them (ok, this comparision doesn't quite work, but I think it gets the basic idea).
hobofan 6y ago
> why shouldn't those folks' ratings of the food be factored into the restaurant's rating? Because a lot of people are not capable of differentiating between product and delivery, and poor delivery (which they have no control over in this case) shouldn't result in low ratings. Have you ever looked at Amazon reviews? A good chunk of them seems to purely give their stars based on delivery.
zpeti 6y ago

kbos87 6y ago

In a similar situation, the alcohol delivery service Drizly received a ton of backlash for buying ads on the brand terms of a Black-owned wine shop in Boston that they had no affiliation with. When buyers understand how platforms do this, they are pretty clear that they don’t agree with it. https://www.instagram.com/p/CGpUGbuAc-q/?igshid=1u5yor18vch0y https://www.instagram.com/p/CGpUGbuAc-q/?igshid=1u5yor18vch0...

rjyoungling 6y ago

This was an "accident" waiting to happen.

code4tee 6y ago

A lot of companies do things like this where they pretend to be another company to scoop in business as a middleman. Recently googled a tradesperson and called the number on the top result that came up. It quickly became clear that I wasn’t talking to the outfit I was trying to call but someone trying to insert themselves in the middle and collect a fee. When I grilled them it became clear what was going on. I eventually hung up and found a new number which put me in touch with the company directly. When I told them what happened they were like “yeah (insert name of one stop shop for home repairs) has been doing this... we have nothing to do with them but they keep trying to pretend we work with them and put out adverts under our name.” Super frustrating and I can sympathize with the restaurants where the same sort of thing seems to be happening. The likes of Google could of course police this a lot better but they’re happy to take the money for the ads.

tantalor 6y ago

The result will depend on difference between "could harm" and "actually did harm".

MangoCoffee 6y ago

another example of "silicon valley disruption" operate in the gray area. not sure why Grubhub think they can just add whoever they wanted into their listing without asking. we've seem this kind of "silicon valley disruption" with AirBnB, Uber...etc. its no wonder these companies needs massive amount of money to deal with lawsuit like this or govrt.

bckygldstn 6y ago

The lawsuit [1] lists the following Factual Allegations: • Gruhub tells consumers it’s working cooperatively with restaurants • Grubhub decides to add unaffiliated restaurants to its website and mobile apps without the restaurants’ permission • Grubhub’s unauthorized use of restaurants’ names and logos misleads consumers and harms restaurants • Restaurants have good reasons for choosing not to work with Grubhub ◦ Grubhub knows restaurants don’t want its business and tells drivers to disguise their affiliation with Grubhub ◦ Consumers continue to believe restaurants on Grubhub are working cooperatively with Grubhub ◦ Customer confusion leads to poor experiences that hurt restaurants’ hard-earned reputations ◦ Grubhub diverts and impairs demand for local restaurants • Grubhub knows it is harming restaurants and uses that harm to force restaurants into unwanted partnerships [1] https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Class-Action-Lawsuit-Gibbs-Law-Group.pdf?x76150 https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Cla...

judge2020 6y ago
Sounds like an open-and-shut case, but GH has the backing of SV lawyers so chances are it'll drag on for 3 years or end in settlement.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
A counter point is that an individual is free to hire someone to go and pick up food from a restaurant on their behalf and it does not make any difference to the restaurant. I suspect that what restaurants fear, though, is that Grubhub is trying to grab as much marketshare as possible then once they are in a position of strength they'll go and demand a commission from the restaurants, or else...
- staplers 6y ago
  an individual is free to hire someone to go and pick up food from a restaurant on their behalf They are commercially advertising names, logos, menus, etc not taking random orders from people.
  - 6y ago

tartoran 6y ago

I have a friend with a small restaurant business and learned about some of the sketchy things grubhub does . Some people order food, my friend's business delivers the food and a few hours after the food was delivered the order is cancelled. Grubhub refunds the money to the person who ordered and refuses to do absolutely anything about it for the business. He filmed on his phone when dropping the food, handing it to a customer and Grubhub shrugs their shoulders. They suggested he creates a a black list of numbers+addresses to refuse orders but that isn't fool proof, the sketchy customers use different numbers and order at a slightly different address and wait outside for it. They may add numbers to a black list as well but some of these bad customers use burner phones. So a big problem with these middleman services is that control is completely ceded to the middleman and one can't really do anything about it. It is extremely frustrating for business owners, but probably not as bad for the customers. This type of competition a la Grubhub/Amazon will kill a lot of legitimate business and create their own generic services instead. It is a subjugating experience and business owners don't feel that they are control of their own destiny. It saddens me that this trend doesn't seem to get any better but only exacerbate over time.

aurizon 6y ago

This is a one-at-a-time identity theft racket that can be combined with assorted stolen SSN etc, via address matching as well as the genuine credit card number for the order. I expect this resource is already being mined by various crime gangs. It is well distributed so it acts like broadband system 'noise' = harder to find and footprint analyze. Of course, the gangs know all about data footprints and how to obfuscate them.

insidepgsmind 6y ago

From what I understand this was Casey Winters who spearheaded this?

amdelamar 6y ago

Imagine if a site like AppleiPhone.com was setup and selling iPhones as a front to Apple.com, complete with their own shopping menu and phone number that they owned instead of Apple.

hinkley 6y ago

We finally started driving across town to get carry-out once we realized how big a difference in cost it was. Not only is there a fee but I think they're also inflating prices, and for some restaurants they kept getting the order wrong. Plus the tip goes to their driver, not the restaurant. I mean yeah, props to the driver driving all over getting my food, but I want my guilt money to go to the cooks, who are breathing each other's air in a kitchen so I can stress eat, just feeling lucky they still have a job at all.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

I’m not an expert in this area, and IANAL, so... When I started a business (is the USA) that had a name that wasn’t mine, I needed to file a DBA (doing business as) form in my city. If GrubHub is representing themselves as SomeRestaurantIncorporated without some legal mechanism for doing so, like a DBA, I don’t see how they can justify it.

actiondoes 6y ago

Would love to find a search engine that does not give any results from intermediaries like grubhub and yelp. Let me find the restaurants and judge them for myself based on their service