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The objectionable behavior is that they represent themselves as being restaurant X, or at least present themselves in such a way that finding out that they aren

• chrisseaton 6y ago
  Ok but see how we've slipped down from full-on 'fraudulent' to just 'objectionable'? People are allowed to be objectionable if they want to.
  • roenxi 6y ago
    Mr. Wave may have meant legally objectionable as in "the objection that would be the core of the legal case" or "the legal system objects to this". Similar to how a legal complaint doesn't mean someone whining.
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      If they did then what do they think is the infraction or offence that is being committed? They're being objectionable by committing or infracting... what? What law or regulation would they be breaking?
      • jychang 6y ago
        Trademark law, mostly. If I open an Apple Store, I'm gonna get a lot of lawsuits headed my way in no time. You can't just use another company's logo and name without their permission.
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          > You can't just use another company's logo and name without their permission. I'm afraid I think you're mistaken. You're allowed to use someone's trademark to factually describe the product you're selling. You don't need the owner's permission to do that. If you're selling an actual Apple laptop, you can use the trademarks 'Apple' and the Apple logo to describe it. If you're selling an actual Bob's Burger, you can use that trademark and logo to describe it.
          • varjag 6y ago
            It could be eye opening to create an applestore-sf.com and try selling apple laptops there.
            • chrisseaton 6y ago
              Or macrumors.com for a website about Macintosh computers! They'd surely shut that down since it uses a registered trademark! Oh no wait...
              • alistairSH 6y ago
                Except macrumors is obviously a news/gossip site and makes no effort to pass themselves off as an actual Apple-operated website. apple-sf.com (and the various food delivery sites being discussed) pass themselves off as the restaurant. It's not clear to a casual user that the order is being processed by a 3rd party.
              • Jochim 6y ago
                Except this kind of trademark abuse absolutely does happen. There was a post on HN about it yesterday [1]. Uber successfully had an app taken down that helped drivers determine whether Uber had cheated them out of wages they were owed. The important thing is that unless the people of UberCheats have a lot of money and time to burn they can't really challenge Uber's actions here. Hell, a few weeks ago Apple forced a company to change their logo of a green pear because they claimed it was infringing on the Apple logo[2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26184352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26184352 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26084387 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26084387
      • Larrikin 6y ago
        I would hate to live in the world you imagine where every single awful thing that isn't obviously illegal is considered acceptable by society.
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          And I'd hate to live in a world where you can drag anyone you want before a judge because you don't like what they're doing. I don't like the colour of your shirt, so I'm going to say it's objectionable. It doesn't break any laws or infringe any regulations, but I want a judge's opinion on it anyway. See?
          • pbhjpbhj 6y ago
            Why would you hate that? The judge's opinion would be "the shirt is not unlawful" and "you're wasting court time, have a fine". How would that harm you? In the case of passing off a service you offer as begin the service of another company, there is a clear legal case to answer. And as I recall this is settled caselaw in the UK and the people pretending to be other companies are in the wrong.
            • chrisseaton 6y ago
              > The judge's opinion would be "the shirt is not unlawful" and "you're wasting court time, have a fine". How would that harm you? It wastes the time of the defendant and the legal service, which harms society. It imagine it's also super stressful and expensive for the defendant to go through, even when it's thrown out.
          • Can_Not 6y ago
            So you'd be wasting the judge's time with a frivolous lawsuit the same way you're wasting our time with a frivolous starwman?
        • manigandham 6y ago
          Legality already is society’s measure of what’s acceptable. If you want to change the standard then you do so by changing the law.
      • vitus 6y ago
        Trademark infringement is a big one, and yes, it can be applied even if the trademark isn't registered. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125#a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1125#a 1125(a)(1) is pretty unambiguous in this context. If Grubhub is using a restaurant's name to "deceive as to ... the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods", that's cause for civil action. California also has a new law explicitly addressing this issue: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2149 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... ... and yes, there's an aptly-named website called https://www.grubhublawsuit.com/ https://www.grubhublawsuit.com/ describing a class-action lawsuit on this specific topic. And no, that website isn't an infringement of Grubhub's mark if it's not likely to be confused with Grubhub's business. (It'd be a different story if Grubhub were a law firm in the business of filing class action lawsuits.)
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          You're allowed to use trademarks to factually describe what a product is. Your linked law suit is about something entirely different to what's being discussed in this thread - that's about describing restaurants as shut when they aren't.
          • vitus 6y ago
            Whoops, the Grubhub class action lawsuit in this context is https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Class-Action-Lawsuit-Gibbs-Law-Group.pdf https://www.classlawgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/Grubhub-Cla... You're not allowed to use trademarks to masquerade as the other party, especially if you're then trying to conduct business as if you were that other party. Taking a step back: is there any trademark usage that you view as infringing? Using an example from another side discussion: I hope we can agree that if you made a laptop and called it a Macbook Pro, Apple would sue the heck out of you, and they'd be in the right. Where we seem to disagree is whether it's infringement if you set up a storefront, name it "Apple Store", and exclusively sell products that you've purchased from an Apple-run Apple Store.
      • matthewowen 6y ago
        "passing off" is a common law tort. If there's confusion, it could well fall under that. There's also a very large body of trademark specific law which may specifically address this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_off
        • chrisseaton 6y ago
          > The law of passing off prevents one trader from misrepresenting goods or services as being the goods and services of another, and also prevents a trader from holding out his or her goods or services as having some association or connection with another when this is not true. But the food isn't being misrepresented! It is the food of the restaurant. Passing off means pretending the product is something it isn't. That isn't what is happening here at all. You and a few others seem to be under some kind of mistaken understanding that the food is 'fake' or from a fraudulent dark kitchen not actually associated with the restaurant? That's not the case. It's the actual real food from the actual restaurant, resold.
          • matthewowen 6y ago
            That is one circumstance covered but not the only one. I'm not under a mistaken understanding. I'm explicitly saying that you might not have to misrepresent the food itself: if you insert yourself as an intermediary but claim to be the underlying provider, there's potential for confusion and damage to the goodwill of the underlying provider, and that is what passing off fundamentally protects against. I don't know if it would fly, but you asked and that's a place a case might be found. The broader point here: it's one thing to advertise selling someone else's product. It's another to _pretend to be them_.
          • lmkg 6y ago
            "goods and services" The service of delivery is what is being passed off.
        • whelming_wave 6y ago
          My definitely-not-a-lawyer reading of this even seems like there’s a decent case to be made, by the definitely-not-legally-exhaustive “required elements” there. The goodwill is their reputation, misrepresentation is obvious, and damage to their brand would be negative reviews (“food was cold, would not buy again!”) on Google or similar sites.
  • amelius 6y ago
    > People are allowed to be objectionable if they want to. Isn't that what we (should) have judges for? I mean, if a judge blindly follows the letter of the law, we can replace him/her by a computer.
    • chrisseaton 6y ago
      But you need some kind of infraction or starting point if you want a judge to consider it. 'They're being objectionable' is not a reasonable starting point. 'They're being fraudulent' would be... but they clearly aren't being fraudulent.
  • jacquesm 6y ago
    Misrepresentation isn't fraud but it is still not legal. You can't pass yourself off as someone or some entity that you are not. See also: 1-900 numbers pretending to be 'the company' but actually just switchboards connecting you through to the company that they pretend to be.
  • tobmlt 6y ago
    Yes indeed. I guess I will use this comment to explore its objectionable properties. I think I can come up with a somewhat nuanced reason for objection (not saying this has any bearing on legality). Let me talk it through. Here goes: The Resturant gets paid and the customers get food. The delivery service adds value and gets paid for it. If someone doesn’t realize doordash is not the Resturant by now... who cares? As long as the restaurants reputation is not hurt... (here’s were the issues start) To that end, if I am the Resturant, I see that I can add my own delivery service, undercut doordash by a bit, and make more money, and control my reputation by employing people who have incintives aligned with me, then great! Thanks doordash, for showing me the way. Ah, but can I? Maybe not without forming a power group with other restaurants (or some other economic structure..?), as the cost of adding a “real employee” may be greater than the margin added by the delivery service. I need a structure that both aligns incentives between delivery service and Resturant, and is cost effective. Since restaurants weren’t already doing this, probably it has to happen at the meta-Resturant level of it can be done while preserving reputation at all. (Of course, the difficulty of it depends on the food being served, so that’s why, e.g. pizza was already being delivered.)
  • FireBeyond 6y ago
    In many environments, fraud contains a definition of "dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception". Your example is flawed. It's not a crime or fraud to resell a product. It is still fraud, not merely objectionable, to resell a product while in every way possible acting as if you are not a reseller but the original producer.