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Lieferando.de has captured 5.7% of restaurant related domain names
- kevinprice 1y ago[flagged]
- codingjerk 1y agoDomain squatting should be illegal
- mvdwoord 1y agoAgree, this is deceptive, and highly annoying as consumer too. There must be some consumer protection laws in the EU that can be used against this?
- thrance 1y agoSadly not, the corrupt ICANN seems out of reach of European regulators.
- hgomersall 1y agoThey could fracture the internet. I expect even the threat would bring ICANN into line.
- OgsyedIE 1y agoJudging from their handling of the American-dominated search, email and cloud shenanigans to the EU's detriment already, the EU probably can't even conceive that the infrastructure giants like PCH even need to be threatened yet. They are very slow on the uptake.
- xnickb 1y agoYeah and it feels Germany more than other EU states is dragging behind in everything IT related. Perhaps the problem isn't as much the lack of political will, but rather lack of competence.
- OgsyedIE 1y agoThe lack of competence is downstream of a lack of vision. Fix it and the competence will come. Don't fix it and every attempt to imbue competence will fail.
- schroeding 1y agoThese are ccTLDs, though, ICANN is out of the picture there, they have no authority after delegation. It's the fault of DENIC, the German ccTLD local operator. DENIC is a German entity, they are very much within reach of regulators. (That's also the reason why foreign ccTLDs of, eh, semi-stable countries, e.g. .so domains, are risky - should the local operator start to lose it at some point, no-one can help you, neither ICANN nor IANA)
- account42 1y agoThe domain registry isn't even relevant here - the authorities can go directly after Liferando - who are doing business in Germany - no matter what TLD or other medium they use for their fraud.
- xnickb 1y ago> corrupt ICANN Could you elaborate?
- teddyh 1y agoA recent example is what they first did, and then tried to do, to .org in 2019.
- rplnt 1y agoDomain ownership should be progressively taxed. House ownership too for that matter. With houses it's easy to prevent tax evasion by splitting the ownership between multiple entities (because companies shouldn't own housing), but it would be almost impossible with domains...
- jarym 1y ago[flagged]
- literalAardvark 1y agoIt doesn't apply to the masses by definition. Just whoever has "too much" of anything, where "too much" can indeed be defined in a problematic way.
- rad_gruchalski 1y agoWho decides when one has too many of something?
- briandear 1y agoThe people who have less of it.
- rad_gruchalski 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jodrellblank 1y agoAt the point where you’re against Robin Hood, you should be asking yourself “am I the bad guy?”. “You want to stop me monopolising medication to sell at the maximum possible cost? Everyone’s bloody Mother Theresa in this utter hellhole.”
- ctxc 1y agoApparently they not only create the website, but also claim the Google Maps listing using the website and then go on to extort the restaurants for $$$ to add their correct contact details on the listing.
- sschueller 1y agoThis is worse. They are using them to "steal" direct customers.
- alexdns 1y agoit is illegal if you have the trademark you can use the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy to get it back
- jeroenhd 1y agoDENIC (who controls .de) has its own (very... German) dispute system: https://www.denic.de/en/service/dispute https://www.denic.de/en/service/dispute that they would rather you use. It requires mailing a form to request information, then mailing a form to send a dispute (don't be fooled by the web forms or PDFs, those are just tools to generate the documents you need to print, sign, and send). Their FAQ lists why you usually don't want to go for UDNDR when you can help it, though: https://www.denic.de/en/faqs/all-faq#code-106 https://www.denic.de/en/faqs/all-faq#code-106 ICANN's procedures are all nice and dandy if all three parties involved are in the USA, but when it comes to international disputes (in this case the Dutch company registering the domains and the German business being impersonated), things can get pretty complex and expensive real fast.
- erk__ 1y agoIt is not allowed with some domain names such as .DK where you can complain if you see a domain name used in that way.
- Geezus_42 1y agoHow is it different from real estate which people have been hoarding without using for centuries?
- thrance 1y agoLand hoarding should be illegal too. But it's especially egregious when it comes to domain names, as you're paying fortunes to rent imaginary strings of characters, made scarce for absolutely no reason since we have an infinite supply of them.
- vntok 1y agoWe don't have an infinite supply of the abc.com domain, there's just the one. That's the whole point of DNS, to provide unicity across the whole network.
- ctxc 1y agoApparently they not only create the website, but also claim the Google Maps listing using the website. And then go on to extort the restaurants for $$$ to add their correct contact details on the listing.
- rollcat 1y agoAgreed. Search engine results is what gives a domain name credibility. EU has been going hard on "gatekeepers" recently. Good regulation could fix this. E.g. make Google verify each address by sending the business a form in a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
- tom1337 1y agoBack in the days Google verified businesses by sending a postcard to the address you have created your business at. The postcard had a verification code which you’d need to enter. Sometimes you'd also had to revalidate the adress ownership every now and then. Unfortunately they do not seem to be doing this anymore.
- sampullman 1y agoI had to do this a few years ago, I'm surprised it's not done that way anymore.
- barbazoo 1y agoProbably got in the way of them making all the money.
- esperent 1y agoWhen I registered my business on Google maps they said they were going to send a postcard with a code on it to verify us. This was about 3 years ago. But they never actually did as far as I know, unless one of my colleagues handled it without telling me.
- lolinder 1y agoGoogle should be forced to do this, but also I'm pretty sure that this behavior by Lieferando breaks existing laws that just need to be enforced.
- c16 1y agoFor a Takeaway company, they sure seem to be falling short of EEAT (pun intended). Maybe it's time for someone at Google to take a look at this abuse like they did when the industry called out Forbes Advisor.
- immibis 1y agoGoogle will never handicap Google's revenue.
- raverbashing 1y agoIf they're registering a .de domain and violating trademarks I think this would be a great picking for IP lawyers
- FinnLobsien 1y agoI think the problem is that most local restaurants don't have trademarks nor the acumen/money to register them because they never figured they'd have to fend off things like that.
- junto 1y agoAgreed. Germany does have a good class action equivalent, which an IP lawyer would be interested to pick it up. Companies such as AXA have been forced to pay back millions to customers for simple discrepancies in their legal terms and conditions for example in the past. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/bgh-urteil-rueckzahlung-fuer-privatversicherte-1.5149893 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/bgh-urteil-rueckzahlu...
- kleiba 1y agoINAL but it is my understanding that this practice (registering a website with the same name of an existing third-party restaurant) is already a break of various existing laws, at least potentially. But, frankly, for small restaurants it's already difficult to make ends meet, so who's got the means to actually take a company like lieferando to court?
- phoronixrly 1y agoFor the .bg domain, registering a company with the same name as the domain allows you to appeal to the registry and get the domain. It's the same if you have a trademark.
- alexdns 1y agofor any TLD/ccTLD including .bg if you have a trademark you can get the domain even if its registered by someone else - its a very simple appeal process - Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy
- abcd_f 1y ago[flagged]
- notachatbot123 1y agoNo need to assume intent instead of typo and respond with crass language.
- Clood5 1y ago[dead]
- ahmedfromtunis 1y agoFor a small restaurant, wouldn't it be easier to rebrand but making sure they own the domain first? I know this is not ideal, but pragmatically speaking, this might be simpler and cheaper.
- mschuster91 1y agoThe thing is, even "small" restaurants can have decades worth of history and clients may not recognize a new name. That, combined with German tendency to believe that "the Internet is Neuland" and not care about it, is now proving disastrous.
- schroeding 1y agoIMO "not ideal" is still a euphemism. Even if you do this, often throwing away decades of branding, there is a high chance that Lieferando aka Just Eat Takeaway.com will still not only register a similar domain again, but that it will rank higher than your website anyway, even with the "worse" domain. You have a small restaurant, often using things like WiX or Squarespace, against a tech company with a dedicated SEO team. Good luck.
- wongarsu 1y agoEvery previously loyal customer would believe the restaurant changed ownership and is no longer a known quantity. If anything, a rebrand is much harder if you are small. If McDonalds rebranded to a new name that would make national news, and their consistent and well-protected branding and large number of store locations would make it very clear to potential customers that little except the name changed. Small restaurants have non of that
- terinjokes 1y agoCase in point: the sign outside the fast food establishment might say "Macca's" instead of "McDonald's", but I know little has changed otherwise.
- saurabhshahh 1y agoIs it ethical and legal to do it? A similar case happened in India for a domain "Jiohotstar.com" - a student bought the domain anticipating the merger and make some money out of it. But the Jio filed a case against them and they had to sell it to someone in dubai for a lot less money.
- postepowanieadm 1y agoGerman legal system is really odd.
- wolfi1 1y agothey did that also in Austria, years ago
- varun_ch 1y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44094784 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44094784
- mariusor 1y agoI hate how despite all the rhetoric on HN surrounding how much better ethics companies in the EU must have to comply with regulation, as soon as that regulation slips, they turn out to be equally scummy as the rest of the world.
- jhbadger 1y agoCompanies anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that have negative consequences to others (squatting on domain names, polluting the environment, etc.) the only way to do it is to have laws against the behaviors and enforce them (ideally with fines that exceed the financial gain the companies get from the behavior so they don't just see the fines as a cost of doing business).
- gloosx 1y agoLawmakers and enforcers anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that harm the public (passing corrupt laws, selectively enforcing rules, ignoring corporate crimes, etc.), the only way to stop it is to have strict accountability systems and enforce them; but wait, they are the accountability system and the enforcers. Uh-oh.
- skrebbel 1y ago> Companies anywhere have no ethics This is bullshit, plenty companies have plenty of ethics. I don't disagree that laws are important, but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. To behave as scummy as Lieferando has been doing here is a choice and plenty similarly successful companies have not done things this bad. People make up a company and when these people behave badly, we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!"
- Draiken 1y agoHow is it bullshit? > but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. That's literally what happens today everywhere. Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. But what I think GP means is that companies don't inherently have any ethics since they are not people. If a company behaves ethically it's because its owners and employees are doing so, but the company can't have any ethics of its own. Regular people doing their day to day jobs on these criminal health insurance companies, for example, will perform acts that are extremely unethical as an individual, but since they're representing "the company" all that goes out of the window. > we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!" We can call them out but we, the people, can't enforce anything. Maybe we could collectively try to sue them, but at best that's a civil lawsuit and they'll have to pay a bit of money (likely an already accounted cost for businesses that use shady tactics). But to make that criminal, as many times it should, then only the government is empowered to. But we should never forget that we are the ones that keep the government accountable. If they don't do their job and we let them, it's all of our faults. I mean, one of the reasons companies exist in the first place is to allow individuals to behave unethically IMO. Anyone can do bat shit crazy things that they would never get away with when they're behind the protection of a company.
- quaintdev 1y agoSlightly tangential, and this might be controversial, but hear me out. I think we need an alternative to DNS as we know it. Here in India, millions of successful business owners have never heard of DNS. They run profitable enterprises entirely through WhatsApp and use social media pages for their marketing presence. The reason is straightforward: social media platforms have made it incredibly easy to establish an online presence. These entrepreneurs don't care about domain ownership – an Instagram profile with substantial followers represents real business success to them. This pattern extends globally. Remember when celebrities maintained their own websites a decade ago? Today, most have abandoned personal sites in favor of social media followings in the millions. The traditional website + DNS model is simply too complex for most people, so they gravitate toward walled gardens. While this creates platform dependency issues, it also reveals a fundamental UX problem with how we've structured the web's addressing system. Perhaps we need to rethink discoverability and identity on the internet in ways that are more intuitive for ordinary users, rather than expecting everyone to become amateur system administrators.
- justsomehnguy 1y ago> These entrepreneurs don't care about domain ownership – an Instagram profile with substantial followers represents real business success to them. Yes. Until they lose their SNS handle for whatever reason and then they find out what some of them actually do care.
- immibis 1y agoAs long as only a minority of businesses lose their access to WhatsApp, they'll just be outcompeted by ones who follow Facebook's law over India's law. I doubt there's much need for long-term number stability in the type of business that prints a number on its sign out the front, anyway. If it does change, you could go back to the business and read the sign again.
- justsomehnguy 1y ago> I doubt there's much need for long-term number stability in the type of busine AGREE WITH NUANCE Yep, any form of SNS is just a convenience for them and not the main method of interaction with clients. But for some of them it is the main method and for them losing the access could be quite devastating.
- reustle 1y agoGrubHub did exactly the same in the US. Up to 23,000 domains [1], and listed some restaurants on Google Maps without their permission [2] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/grubhub-registered-23000-domains-sometimes-without-owners-knowledge-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/grubhub-registered-23000-dom... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/ghost-kitchens-mystery-grubhub-listings/ https://www.wired.com/story/ghost-kitchens-mystery-grubhub-l... GrubHub was purchased from Thuisbezorgd.nl (Dutch) by Wonder Group (Marc Lore) a few months ago.
- cyxxon 1y agoJust to add this to make it more clear: GrubHub used to belong to the same company as Lieferando, and was only sold at the end of 2024. So in a way this comment is more a "yes, they did it in the US as well".
- nalekberov 1y agoLieferando must be impressed by their "success story".
- Freak_NL 1y agoNote that Lieferando is Thuisbezorgd is Just Eat. Different brand names, same thing.
- weinzierl 1y agoAmazon did that. In their very beginning, they registered a ton of domains, but in absolute numbers it probably pales to contemporary squatters.
- mousetree 1y agoLieferando should spend more time building a good app instead of registering domains. In my experience, they are by far the worst delivery service in Berlin . They’ve also operated long before Uber Eats, Wolt, etc. The only thing they have going for them is some mindshare as the first in the market. I can't understand how they're still around.
- flsaflkelfe 1y ago[dead]
- josefrichter 1y agoI am wondering: does a domain still matter in 2025? Nobody is accessing websites by typing the domain name anymore, are they? If gasthauskaiser.de is taken, I feel like I have dozens of other options. Anyway, there's probably hundreds of pubs called Kaiser in German-speaking world. So what's teh real value of a domain like gasthauskaiser.de?
- thrance 1y agoSEO mostly. Weird domains get downranked because they are favored by scammers (as they are cheaper). Plus, you still need somewhere to host your website, so might as well get a domain that's not too ugly.
- josefrichter 1y agoYeah my point was that you can get plenty "not too ugly" domains. Quick search: - kaiser.restaurant is free - restaurant-kaiser.com is free 5 seconds of work, both probably better than gasthauskaiser.de tbh.
- belinder 1y agoIn this context it matters because Google maps shows only one website when you search for that pub, if the extorters put their website there first then you can't put your real one
- josefrichter 1y agoI believe you can. 1. You can submit correction, 2. You can claim ownership of the actual business.
- ahofmann 1y agoThe problem in this is, that lieferando captures the search results with these domains. They effectively cut the business off of their main customer source for their domain. After doing this, they force the business to get onto their platform. This way they extort money out of a business. So your question is backwards because local dealers had a working solution for their business, but "startups" like lieferando destroy that just to sell and control their own solution. So now the domain is worthless, but only because of lieferando et al. The same happened to booking hotels. Now every hotel room is 20 to 30 % more costly because booking.com forced themselves between the business and the customer and they take their cut. doctolib is trying to do the same with doctors in europe.
- belter 1y agoYou can always guess how shady a company is, if by looking at the whole web site...there is no mention easily found anywhere of who the directors or management team are. You have to follow the track to their owner who ultimately is nothing more than some Dutch managers saved of their mismanagement by a buddy Dutch Investment fund ....owned by a South African base...that is a front end to Chinese investments via Tencent Holdings... But hey...they have a Ethics hotline and can think of multiple ethnics violations to report here: https://app.convercent.com/en-gb/LandingPage/d8e86634-ec59-ec11-a985-000d3ab9f296 https://app.convercent.com/en-gb/LandingPage/d8e86634-ec59-e...
- TrackerFF 1y agoSo let's say you own a restaurant joint. Bob's Asian takeaway. You enter your phone number and opening hours; phone number 123-45-789, open 12.00 - 22.00, mon - sun One day the phone goes suspiciously quiet. A customer stops by your shop, and orders something. He mentions that he tried calling, but the number he got on google must've been wrong because some automated robot message. You decide to google your own restaurant, and sure enough, the phone number that shows up is 800-00-123. But your keen eye also spots that the link to the restaurant isn't www.bobsasiantakeaway.com, but rather www.bobsasiantakeaway-food.com Any way you try to search, the top results only point to that website, phone number, google maps location, etc. Suddenly a sales rep from some company calls you, and offers you a deal - if you pay [x€ month], they will help with increasing your sales. You say OK, I'll try. Not too long after, calls and orders start coming in a before. You try to call 800-00-123 from your private cellphone, and sure enough - the phone at work starts ringing. You click on the link www.bobsasiantakeaway-food.com, and you're redirected to www.bobsasiantakeaway.com If you stop the payments, no more phone calls and no web traffic. You change the name of your restaurant? A new version of the above pops up immediately. You report it to the relevant authorities, but you're told it could take months and months for them to look at your case...you can't survive 6 months with minimum sales. For some unfortunate small fish, that's sort of how it works.
- bufferoverflow 1y agoHow do they change the phone # and the website of your business?
- mtsr 1y agoThey don't. They push you down the search results through SEO and link-farming on their giant web empire.
- makoto12 1y agoAnecdata: my neighbour runs a doggy day care. She's been flooded with 1 star reviews (clearly not from her customers), and received similar coercive phones calls to help her improve her online presence. Not much she can do about it, as Google is not particularly responsive
- miohtama 1y agoWhen websites becomes useless and predatory, looks like more and more small places are doing Facebook pages only. Easier for them, but going to centralised Zuckerberg Internet only is not ideal.
- air7 1y agoPerhaps an unpopular opinion, but I would like .COM domains to ~ 1000$ per year. As these domains are intended (and actually are) used for COMmercial ventures, the sum should be low enough to not be a burden on even a small real business, but be high enough to not be economically viable for squatting.
- squigz 1y agoThis wouldn't solve anything. People would just start using a cheaper TLD, which will attract squatters again.
- nubinetwork 1y agoI suspect that doordash does the same thing...
- cess11 1y agoIt's telling that they do this without fear of kinetic repercussions from their victims or more bureaucratic consequences mediated through the state.
- exiguus 1y agoHave you ever told the story to Spiegel, Zeit or Böhmermann? I think as many people as possible should be aware of the unethical lieferando practices.
- wrikken 1y agoWonderful to see all kinds of nefarious world domination plans are attributed here. The gist from inside: * Whether restaurants want a domain is an onboarding yes/no question. * If they no longer want it, removing them is a simple message to the customer service from the partner. Whether they fully understand the yes/no question is debatable at times, however, for that I point you to the easy fix in the second part should they change their mind. Feel free do disbelieve me if that aligns more with your world view.
- fewdaysto2025 1y ago[dead]