121–130 of 288 posts
Trading under another brands name -- by listing them as an ordering place with an unofficial dark kitchen associated in your app -- seems like the most egregious form of trade mark infringement. Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
That said, I think you're arguing that if Purdue Pharma were to continue pushing opioids and the Sacklers continued to profit handsomely, that would be equivalent to them stopping now? Stopping them now isn't any sort of win?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
When it’s Apple suddenly everyone argues the opposite!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
You are ignoring 80% of my argumentations to make your sophistic point, and then complaining "about everyone on HN", you're just being disingenuous.
We're talking about prepared food here (and potentially fraud), not books. And you talk to me about "first sale doctrine" in relation to prepared food claiming everybody here is ignorant?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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'.
Are they claiming to be the restaurant? Or just saying you can phone this number and get the advertised product, which is true?
Here's an example. The site linked (menupages.com) is owned by Grubhub/Seamless. The telephone number is not the actual phone number of the restaurant, and attempting to order through this site gives no hint that you're using Grubhub/Seamless.
https://menupages.com/tropical-sensation/953-amsterdam-st-ne...
While search engines seem to have backed off putting GrubHub's fake websites near the top of searches, this has been a widespread practice by them for a long time[0]:
"The company has registered a lot of fake websites. GrubHub has registered either a bit more than 23,000 websites, according to the New Food Economy, or 34,000 over the last nine years, per the New York Post’s report. The last domain GrubHub registered was in May, when the Post detailed the company’s practice of creating phone numbers for restaurants in order to drive up its own sales."
[0] https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/07/everything-you-need-to-kn...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You’re allowed to use a trademark to factually describe a product. If I have legitimately bought an iPhone and I’m offering to resell it to you I can use the iPhone trademark to do that.
Trading under another brands name -- by listing them as an ordering place with an unofficial dark kitchen associated in your app -- seems like the most egregious form of trade mark infringement. Why aren't GrubHub concerned about the legal reprecussions of this?
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…
FYI - the same thing happens with Hotels.com. When you "call the hotel" with the number listed, I learned that the representative is actually a Hotels.com rep, not a hotel employee or hotel call-center employee. This matters. In my case, I asked about my corporate discount and they gave me a vague answer about "I dont see anything in the system", which I guess was technically not a lie, but definitely deceitful. I wi…