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Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

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Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#101

Post by gumby »

muststopmyths wrote: post #85
gumby wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We drove up the Oregon coast and my GF used Yelp to find good places for us to stop and eat. I was frankly astonished as, like you, I've found Yelp pretty useless at best.

There was an xkcd about this, but i've found anything below 4.5 stars is mediocre. Above that you find a better probability of a good meal, but it's still just a probability. I find it servers as a good filter for the awful stuff, which is what I really care about when travelling.

I have a friend who has run a restaurant for decades with a customer base that is almost entirely regulars. She has encouraged us to leave bad yelp reviews as she has found "yelpers" (different from people who simply consult yelp) to be a pain in the neck...plus wants space to be available for the regulars.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#102

Post by gkoberger »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #66
gkoberger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go! https://foursquare.com/city-guide (I mostly use the app. It also keeps track of everywhere I've been, and I can see my history over the past decade.)

Thank you! (And thanks for the info of a mobile map!) One more question: Does it have a sort by ranking? I can't seem to find it on the desktop site. I may need to run it in Chrome. On Firefox it may not be displaying properly. I know it sounds silly, but I really do need a sort by rating. This is still far better than nothing. Thank you. ^_^

I haven’t checked the website, but I confirmed the app has it as an option!

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#103

Post by AlexandrB »

Spivak wrote: post #77

Wait I don’t get the hate over this. This isn’t Grubhub pretending to be the restaurant or anything. This is Grubhub doing the equivalent of Google Search’s link tracking but for phone numbers so that they can attribute the sale to Yelp. Is it weird that Yelp has made referral codes for phone calls?

In many cases, neither Yelp nor Grubhub are adding value here. They are inserting themselves as rentiers because they are better at SEO (i.e. have more money) than the restaurants themselves. It amounts to a shakedown similar to domain squatting.

That's not to mention the surveillance capitalism angle of phone calls that would previously be private now being recorded by Grubhub.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#104

Post by ajb »

castratikron wrote: post #84
ajb wrote: post #33

In 1891, the first electromechanical telephone exchange was invented by Almon Strowger, an undertaker. He was concerned that the human operators were diverting his customers (specifically, the wife of one of his competitors was an operator). If you think about it, every business interaction before the twentieth century was mediated by 1:1 interactions with humans, who brought their own prejudices and self-interest to…

I would say there's no moral difference between a human operator and a mechanical operator whose behavior is controlled by a human. Configuring the operator to drop calls from a particular area code would be an example in the case you provided.

Sure. It just used to be harder to build in, and to do so precisely. In your example, dropping calls from an area code, that's a relatively coarse filter.

There's a whole strand of academic research [1] arguing about whether people can build prejudice into technological artifacts, eg one disputed example was an underpass with low clearance, supposedly so that white middle class people in cars could pass, but black poor people in buses could not [1, p123].

These days that dispute is ridiculous - obviously prejudice and bias can be built into technological artifacts. It's one "if statement" away.

[1] "Do Artifacts have politics" https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#105

Post by jtsiskin »

fma wrote: post #61
germinalphrase wrote: post #25

I understand charging a fee to the customer who is making the choice to call, but if a restaurant simply answers the phone - how is it acceptable that Yelp can charge them for doing so? Did they consent to this fee?

For the record, I dislike this practice...but to play devil's advocate (pls don't downvote for playing devil's advocate LOL) If I go to Google and I type in {name of my favorite restaurant}...and the first link on top is an ad placed by that restaurant, and below it is the actual restaurant's website...If I click on that ad, Google will charge that restaurant money, when it just redirects me to the website. In this c…

Whats the argument here?

Most people would agree that what Google is doing is also immoral.

But ignoring that, I don't see the equivalency - you are paying Google to prevent someone else from paying them more and showing up above you; in the Yelp case, your phone number already existed on Yelp, and someone is already on the page, yet GrubHub still adds their number.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#106

Post by daniellarusso »

jellicle wrote: post #32
daniellarusso wrote: post #17

Could this be considered libel? ‘Publishing’ knowingly ‘wrong’ phone numbers associated with a business, would that cause damages?

Not libel but instead: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unfair-trade-practice.a... I honestly don't understand why various state attorneys haven't taken this on. Not enough complaints?

Who is the customer in this case?

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#108

Post by falcolas »

jjeaff wrote: post #97
ajb wrote: post #33

In 1891, the first electromechanical telephone exchange was invented by Almon Strowger, an undertaker. He was concerned that the human operators were diverting his customers (specifically, the wife of one of his competitors was an operator). If you think about it, every business interaction before the twentieth century was mediated by 1:1 interactions with humans, who brought their own prejudices and self-interest to…

At the same time, technology offers some solutions to this like ssl certificates. Perhaps there is a business model for bespoke extended validation ssl certs where, for example, they are tied to a physical address.

SSL certificates, which require you to trust someone you’ve never met with the entirety of your digital life. From your social connections to your bank account and everything in between, you’re putting your faith not only in their honesty, but in their ability to limit mistakes.

Not that there’s a better solution yet, but technical solutions like SSL certificates still boil down to trust, and in whom you place your.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#109

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

I Googled a local Indian restaurant I wanted to order from this weekend. The top result had the restaurant name and looked like their site. Online ordering sent me to MealHi5, which didn't seem to think there are any restaurants in our area. So I called, ordered, and asked about online order when I picked up the food. It turns out they have a different domain that is setup (I think, and/or Google is good at recognizing restaurants) to show an "Order Online" button under the Google business summary. That takes me to a different online ordering site that isn't MealHi5 that I'm assuming works.

I'm assuming either a service did the "register a domain for all the local restaurants" trick, or they switched restaurant hosting providers and the domain changed but not the top result in Google, or something else.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#110

Post by daniellarusso »

berdario wrote: post #49
daniellarusso wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be considered a RICO violation? Is this not bribery?

It's never RICO https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-... specifically, I don't see how this can be bribery. Who is the person or official that Yelp is bribing? It's not Grubhub, since Grubhub doesn't really have any authority to guide purchases through their systems. In fact, if anything, it's yelp which surreptitiously can guide purchases through more expensive (for the restaurant) services. B…

So, I re-read the above linked article and it seems like the article makes the case that this instance could fall under a civil RICO suit.

Bribery, I am not using the correct term.

Whatever the term that means “If you don’t pay us, bad things will happen.”

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