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

111–120 of 288 posts

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#111

Post by BurningFrog »

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.

The possibly fraudulent part is that the customers is led to believe they're dealing with the restaurant.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#112

Post by sathackr »

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 me it gets 'shitty' when they do this without disclosure. I have no problem with placing an order with GH and having them place the order for me, but when they masquerade as the restaurant and try to hide that from the customer is where the problem comes in.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#113

Post by jdmichal »

KittenInABox wrote: post #108
jdmichal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is just reiterating the first post I responded to, and so I'll respond in kind:

Why does Grubhub have any responsibility to obtain the restaurant's consent? If I pay someone to go to the grocers and pick up some items for me, is that someone obligated to obtain the grocers' permission? Why is this situation different?

If the restaurant is offering pickup service, then to me there is no obligation on any third party to obtain permission to utilize that service and deliver the results to a customer.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#114

Post by tartoran »

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.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#115

Post by kop316 »

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #82
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…

[ 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…

"Grubhub was against place and pay at first, when UberEats and Doordash began doing it (not because Grubhub is selfless but because partnered restaurants are way more profitable), but resisting place and pay turned out to be a recipe for losing market share so that's no longer the case."

If Grubhub actually took a stand and showed they not only did not do this sort of behavior, I would actually use it, and I would pay the premium for delivery (to make sure the restaurant makes money and the driver makes money).

Instead, I never use your service, and I never plan to. I go out of my way to call a restaurant (and because of shady behavior like that, I take the extra time to make sure it is that restaurant and not some call center) and I will physically go to a restaurant because to pick up my order, so I know they are not losing money on orders.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#116

Post by throw_m239339 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #91
pc86 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your book example, I am buying a book from you . A better example would be you buy search ads for the author's name, create a website with a button "Contact the author" which goes to you, and then you sell me the book.

And I’m buying the food from GrubHub who buy the food from the restaurant. Like if I buy a book from a bookshop who buy it from the publisher.

> A Like if I buy a book from a bookshop who buy it from the publisher.

No it is not the same, because there is no business agreement between Grubhub and the restaurant here unwilling and unaware restaurants aren't "kitchens" working for Grubhub.

Grubhub wouldn't dare pulling that stunt with McDonalds or BurgerKing and list their products, use their corporate identity and sandwich pictures without an agreement or striking a deal before hand.

They are preying on smaller restaurants because they know it's harder for the little guy to fight back, it's the very definition of predatory behaviour. You just don't see anything wrong with that.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#117

Post by tartoran »

chrisseaton wrote: post #107
LandR wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

We're talking about cooked food here though, not sure if it applies

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#118

Post by chrisseaton »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #116
chrisseaton wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I’m buying the food from GrubHub who buy the food from the restaurant. Like if I buy a book from a bookshop who buy it from the publisher.

> A Like if I buy a book from a bookshop who buy it from the publisher. No it is not the same, because there is no business agreement between Grubhub and the restaurant here unwilling and unaware restaurants aren't "kitchens" working for Grubhub. Grubhub wouldn't dare pulling that stunt with McDonalds or BurgerKing and list their products, use their corporate identity and sandwich pictures without an agreement or str…

> because there is no business agreement between Grubhub and the restaurant

You don’t need an agreement to resell product that you have purchased.

Or is everyone on HN now suddenly in favour of scrapping the first sale doctrine and allowing manufacturers to control if you can resell your property?

Madness. If GrubHub are able to buy the product they should be able to resell it.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#119

Post by ggoo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #109
ggoo wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bein…

No lawyer but demonstrating that "only an idiot blames the company cooking the food when the independently-contracted delivery guy is too slow" seems quite challenging, people leave reviews for all kinds of random, unrelated reasons.

I would never make a bet on peoples inability to be idiots.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#120

Post by anotherman554 »

jdmichal wrote: post #58
buckminster wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Grubhub often partners with restaurants. The fact they do not disclose the cases when they do not is very deceptive.
Post reply on HN