Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission • Hacker News Board

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#191

Post by Igelau » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #154

TuringNYC wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had to recently book a hotel for a few nights. Hotels are mostly empty because of COVID. When I called to book a room it was clearly a script being followed with high pressure tactics including saying rooms are filling up quickly. Once I arrived at the hotel it looked mostly dead, and I when I asked the manager who was helping me behind the counter, he said they were at 10% capacity. It should also be illegal for b…

To be fair, they had just experienced a sudden exponential surge in interest: your phone call.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#192

Post by acdha » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #106

tartoran wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wh…

Again, it’s misrepresentation: if they had a website and phone staff who made it very clear that they were unaffiliated with the listed business they would not be getting sued any more than a travel agent gets sued for buying airline tickets.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#193

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

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 they fail to make clear that you are ordering from them, not the restaurant. With all that implies about responsibility about pricing, if there is an issue with the order, etc.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#194

Post by lallysingh » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #11

s_dev wrote: post #7

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?

Because "justice" in the US is not about who's right and who's wrong, it's about who's got the most money and resources to pursue a lawsuit.

At some point the question of "who is actually right, and who is actually wrong" has to be answered through the work of people. Those people have to be paid. For criminal work, that's taxpayers footing the bill -- sometimes just for one side. For civil, the government provides a judge and the rest has to be paid for privately. It's not awful, but it can be so inefficient that it can break down due to resource exhaustion, or worse, a vector for abuse.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#195

Post by itronitron » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

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…

reminds me of the pizza arbitrage article and discussion from a few months ago...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23216852

https://themargins.substack.com/p/doordash-and-pizza-arbitra...

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#196

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #118

throw_m239339 wrote: post #116

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.

Approximately nobody thinks that grubhub shouldn't be able to resell the food.

However they should be very clear that this is what they are doing, and that issues with the food are now their responsibility.

We wouldn't be having this conversation if GH/Uber/etc. were clearly advertising "Call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx, we'll order takeout for you and deliver it".

If they pick up the phone when you call and say "This is grubhub, how can we help you?" we'd be in different territory.

As soon as you make it ambiguous about who you are ordering from, this is an issue of misrepresentation. Even if it does apply, first sale doctrine is a red herring.

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#197

Post by toast0 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #60

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…

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…

I don't think the intent is to have you book at a higher price. The intent is to get the booking and collect the fee. And they just don't care that they can't process corporate codes.

They are misrepresenting things, and asking about a discount code probably should get you forwarded to the hotel (or their corporate call center). It can get a little hairy when Hotels.com (or whoever) has a lower price or more rooms available than the hotel directly (sometimes the Online Travel Agencies will commit to a number of rooms over a time frame, then they have pricing autonomy and exclusive availability; probably not happening in covid times though)

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#198

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

an_opabinia wrote: post #188

ghthrowaway99 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At face value non-partnered restaurants dont lose money, they simply get more customers (essentially, getting some of the services that partnered restaurants get, but for free since partnered restaurants pay fees for each order that goes through the platform) However, in truth they pay damage in reputation. If the delivery company delivers food slow, or lets it get cold, then the customer will blame the restaurant. O…

People order every day from non Amazon, non Amazon Prime sellers on Amazon. My feeling is end users know what they’re getting into as long as they’re informed the restaurant is non partnered, and your bosses just need to take the 5m to come up with a brand.

I’ve heard many stories about people’s orders taking longer than 2 days to arrive[a] (sometimes even 5+ weeks). When asked, they say they ordered on Amazon and are upset at Amazon for it being late. After you explain that Amazon is also a marketplace, they understand why it’s late (it’s the seller’s fault), but they’re still upset at Amazon for not making it clear enough that it wasn’t going through Prime.

[a]: I.E. non-Prime purchases (ignoring the fact that Prime purchases can also just be late)

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#199

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

sathackr wrote: post #112

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.

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.

Is it a problem when your friend “misrepresents” that the order is for them? Or is it just a scale thing?

Re: Grubhub sued for listing restaurants without permission

#200

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

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.

Or when the driver does multiple orders at once. That’s really upsetting. Because I’ll get a notification that the driver is approaching with my order (about a minute away), and then they proceed to drive past my house into a neighborhood 5-10 minutes away, and then come deliver my food 15-20 minutes after it was picked up.

If the driver is going to do multiple orders at once, I should be informed of this.