Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 288 posts

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#61

Post by acdha »

acoard wrote: post #34
mabbo wrote: post #19

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 custome…

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…

It’s still misrepresentation - would you really be okay with me putting up a bunch of pages pretending to be you with your name, photo, CV, etc. on the claim that’ll I’ll pass along any messages?

Now remember that GrubHub is doing this to make money, so I’ll take 30% off of all receipts before I kick the actual work over to you.

Oh, and GrubHub and UberEats like to do this to see which markets are the most profitable so I’ll be using your customer’s questions and orders as the basis for the ghost shop which will be undercutting you.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#63

Post by KittenInABox »

jdmichal wrote: post #24
pavel_lishin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

But the customers are ordering the food from Grubhub , no? So why would they be confused that there's a middle-man?

Grubhub literally says on their website "Grubhub helps you find and order food from wherever you are. How it works: you type in an address, we tell you the restaurants that deliver to that locale as well as showing you droves of pickup restaurants near you.".

Grubhub literally says 'shows you restaurants that deliver to you', imply the restaurant is delivering, not Grubhub. Furthermore it implies if you order, you're ordering from the restaurant- where Grubhub may have put up that ordering entirely without their consent!

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#64

Post by sschueller »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
mabbo wrote: post #19

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 custome…

> That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. I don't really understand this point of view. They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X. That's exactly what you do get, at the price you agreed. I can't conceive how that's fraud or misrepresentation?

When you click on a number to call the restaurant and not the restaurant answers it is fraud if the restaurant did not agree on that.

Doesn't matter if you end of providing the exact same service.

What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them.

Or what if a private entity picked up your call to 911?

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#65

Post by abernard1 »

mumblemumble wrote: post #57
abernard1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this? Because the company is firmly in Team Blue, and they control the House right now. This is the same organization where the CEO told his employees that if they voted for Trump, they should resign.

Prosecution is handled by the executive branch, not the lower house of the legislative branch.

Except that what they're doing is just barely legal, so it would require legislative policy changes.

But on that note, if someone from the Executive branch wants to try to prosecute GrubHub for this, I'm all for it. Highly unethical at the very least.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#66

Post by the_only_law »

robflynn wrote: post #54
the_only_law wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same here, my area's energy company increased their rate sto build a new nuclear plant, spent some of the money, and then never finished it... Years later I think I got a check for $2.67 for that.

Curious now if we lived in the same area lol or if this is just some sad coincidence.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#67

Post by SilasX »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
mabbo wrote: post #19

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 custome…

> That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. I don't really understand this point of view. They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X. That's exactly what you do get, at the price you agreed. I can't conceive how that's fraud or misrepresentation?

Here they’re going beyond that and saying, “Bill’s Eatery. Phone number: 555-...”, which a reasonable person would think was the restaurant’s number, not a grubhub number.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#68

Post by jdmichal »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #50
jdmichal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the restaurant is participating, in the sense that they are making food for a customer. They just don't understand who the customer actually is. Secondly, are the customers not ordering the food from Grubhub ? Why would they be confused about a middle-man being present?

Because Grubhub makes it sound like they're a delivery service that the restaurants hired. On their front page right now, for example, they say "we tell you the restaurants that deliver to that locale" - that's not an accurate description if Grubhub is the one deciding whether to deliver.

You left out the second part of that sentence. Emphasis mine:

> ... you type in an address, we tell you the restaurants that deliver to that locale as well as showing you droves of pickup restaurants near you.

The complainants here seem to qualify under the second half of that sentence as long as they are offering a pickup service.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#69

Post by woohoo7676 »

chrisshroba wrote: post #30

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 f…

IMO I agree that the real problem is the last one. GrubHub has a history of this, basically co-opting restaurants brands for their own benefit.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/29/21113876/grubhub-seamless...

Also they then use SEO to get their own phone numbers and website higher than the actual restaurant's number/site, basically guaranteeing a cut of any phone/website order, even if the customer doesn't want to go through Grubhub.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#70

Post by akiselev »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
mabbo wrote: post #19

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 custome…

> That's clearly some kind of fraud or misrepresentation. I don't really understand this point of view. They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X. That's exactly what you do get, at the price you agreed. I can't conceive how that's fraud or misrepresentation?

Because when people don't get exactly what they want, they blame the restaurant instead of the Grubhub employees who messed up. The restaurant loses business, grubhub makes a quick buck.

It's at the very least a trademark violation, this is exactly what trademarks were set up to prevent.

Post reply on HN