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Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

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Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#101

Post by pwdisswordfish0 »

jartelt wrote: post #46
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…

>> 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 the restaurant has chosen to focus on dine in service because that generates the much of their revenue (alcohol sales, desserts, etc.), it would be a shame if their ratings were…

This seems like a problem that the review companies are responsible for—coalescing reviews into a single, no-context scalar—moreso than it is the intermediaries' fault.

The original comment stands. If a substantial portion of people are ordering takeout from intermediaries, it's reasonable that when one of those customers checks the reviews, they contain relevant info from others who've ordered the same way and shared their thoughts. Getting in a huff because of that is akin to trying to silence people talking about you because you don't like what those people are saying and/or how other people are responding to it.

If review sites are unfairly mixing irrelevant info (presenting takeout experience using intermediaries to customers who are looking exclusively to dine in), then the ire should be aimed at those sites and, ultimately, the dine-in customers who let irrelevant info dissuade them from going through with their order.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#102

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

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…

The biggest issue, that we have around here, is that GH, and a few other outfits, SEO-spam their listings, sometimes, using branding elements taken directly from the restaurant's sites, and force themselves to the top of searches.

If there are any issues with the order, I guarantee that GH does a quick dash for the door, leaving the restaurant holding the bag. The problem may have occurred anyway, but the customer was actually GH, not the person who called GH.

GH made a sale, got a commission, then didn't have to stand behind their sale.

It may not be illegal, but it is not-nice.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#103

Post by MereInterest »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #51
mrguyorama wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

I know there's been a lot of criticism of the details of the settlement, but Purdue Pharma was sued out of existence by the DOJ last week.

I don't know if I would count that as any sort of a win, given how the primary owners acquired $11 billion, then were fined only $225 million. I guess crime pays out at 98%.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/sacklers-who-made-11...

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#104

Post by ggoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #93
ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ Disclaimer: GH employee but speaking independently & not representing the company in this message ] You're mixing up controversies - there was a separate "feature" Grubhub did years ago where grubhub would stand up online presence for restaurants to bring in web search traffic (branded websites, search results on grubhub.com, etc) and list a grubhub phone number instead of the real phone number so that grubhub coul…

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

There can be a big difference in time between the people who pickup food and bring it right back to their place and the GH employee who has it sitting in their car for 30 min before he gets to your place. This can make the experience worse and hence hurt the restaurants reputation.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#105

Post by nobody9999 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #72
chrisseaton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 understan…

Yes they have to ask for permission to present themselves as an agent of the company, which they do when they present their own phone number as the restaurant phone number. So I imagine the lawsuit will have many legs to stand on. This is business, which has many rules. Its not just 'do whatever you like as long as it makes money'.

>Yes they have to ask for permission to present themselves as an agent of the company, which they do when they present their own phone number as the restaurant phone number. So I imagine the lawsuit will have many legs to stand on.

Except they don't. In fact, they register domain names and set fake websites that say they are the restaurant when they're not. They set up phone numbers that route through Grubhub/Seamless and charge their outrageous commissions even for pickup orders.

While there are many places where delivery services are useful, in places where delivery was already ubiquitous (e.g., NYC), the high commission fees and deceptive practices have forced many low and mid-priced restaurants to close because orders through these services take all their profit and a bunch more, making businesses that had been profitable for years or even decades unprofitable and forcing them to close their doors.

Aside from reducing the number and diversity of restaurants, sucking profit out of such transactions that are way beyond any value provided will also end up costing consumers (that's you) more too.

cf: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/28/19154220/grubhub-seamless... https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/15/21260609/grubhub-phone-ca... https://www.eater.com/2019/8/6/20756799/yelp-grubhub-phone-n...

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#106

Post by shadowgovt »

tartoran wrote: post #52
acoard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 behavio…

Why should they need to ask for permission?

Businesses operate in the public sphere; they have physical addresses and show up in business listings, so their locations and info aren't private. The use of the logo for commercial purposes could be a concern; I could see an argument perhaps saying that the businesses should have more control over their trademarked property in the sense that there could be confusion of whether they're working with Grubhub (they're certainly not endorsing Grubhub).

But apart from that, use of the business's information (including name) to describe what restaurants Grubhub will pick up from is nominative fair use. If I make a list of "businesses in my home town," McDonald's can't use trademark law to keep their name off my list. Same deal here.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#107

Post by chrisseaton »

LandR wrote: post #95
chrisseaton wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

WHat if the delivery person that grubhub uses is useless and the regular delivery person that Restaurant X uses isn't. YOu can end up getting poorly delivered cold food from GrubHub and make restaurant X look bad. Restaurant X might end up having a load of disappointed customers, reduced custom and have no idea why. They dont know there is actually now a middle man they didn't agree to between them and their customer…

You’re attacking the first sale doctrine here though if you think about it!

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#108

Post by KittenInABox »

jdmichal wrote: post #80
KittenInABox wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At least you didn't cut off the second half of that sentence. The AS WELL AS there is carrying a lot of weight. As long as the restaurant is offering pickup service, Grubhub is very clear about that offering.

The restaurant may not be offering pickup service in a way they consent to because Grubhub is listing them against their consent. Grubhub isn't being clear that these restaurants haven't consented to orders via Grubhub.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#109

Post by shadowgovt »

ggoo wrote: post #104
shadowgovt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

There can be a big difference in time between the people who pickup food and bring it right back to their place and the GH employee who has it sitting in their car for 30 min before he gets to your place. This can make the experience worse and hence hurt the restaurants reputation.

Perhaps there is a case to be made here around how reasonable person principle should be applied, because the defense can argue that only an idiot blames the company cooking the food when the independently-contracted delivery guy is too slow.

If they can hinge a case on whether the reasonable person can tell the difference, there's meat on the bones, but I don't see this case ending with Grubhub's business model being declared illegal (only with clarifications as to how to maintain the reputation protection aspect of trademark against the nominative fair use aspect of trademark).

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#110

Post by gruez »

shadowgovt wrote: post #93
ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[ Disclaimer: GH employee but speaking independently & not representing the company in this message ] You're mixing up controversies - there was a separate "feature" Grubhub did years ago where grubhub would stand up online presence for restaurants to bring in web search traffic (branded websites, search results on grubhub.com, etc) and list a grubhub phone number instead of the real phone number so that grubhub coul…

To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large. It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.

> To a first approximation, I can't really see why Place and Pay should be illegal. It's basically paying the neighbor kid to go pick up some dinner for you, writ large.

The service itself isn't illegal, but impersonating the restaurant is.

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