Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#11

Post by Traster »

dentemple wrote: post #4
JasonFruit wrote: post #3

Short form: the restaurants didn't read the TOS, and they have been treated with more consideration than that document requires. GrubHub has done nothing wrong, and even went out of its way to do the right thing.

Utilizing a TOS to exploit small businesses in a domain they have little expertise in. "GrubHub has done nothing wrong", indeed.

Terms of service is the wrong term really. These restaurants signed a contract with another business to receive a service. They didn't read the contract. People running businesses shouldn't be signing contracts without at the very least reading the document carefully. These are absolutely not analagous to Terms of Service and businesses do not enjoy consumer protection laws. These contracts just could just as easily said "Grubhub has the right to offer 10% discounts on weekends" - it wouldn't even be unusual.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#12

Post by Traster »

jedimastert wrote: post #9
JasonFruit wrote: post #3

Short form: the restaurants didn't read the TOS, and they have been treated with more consideration than that document requires. GrubHub has done nothing wrong, and even went out of its way to do the right thing.

Go and ask the nearest 10 local-business restaurant owners what the sentence: > “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” means. I can guarantee most of them will have no idea what that means. Even if they knew what a "microsite" was, that could mean so many different things anyways. And before you say "then they should have asked a lawyer," 1) yes, b…

Here's a crazy idea - they could literally have just e-mailed grubhub asking "Hey, I'm reading through the contract you sent me, could you elaborate on clause X"

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#13

Post by jakelazaroff »

Traster wrote: post #11
dentemple wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utilizing a TOS to exploit small businesses in a domain they have little expertise in. "GrubHub has done nothing wrong", indeed.

Terms of service is the wrong term really. These restaurants signed a contract with another business to receive a service. They didn't read the contract. People running businesses shouldn't be signing contracts without at the very least reading the document carefully. These are absolutely not analagous to Terms of Service and businesses do not enjoy consumer protection laws. These contracts just could just as easily…

Why do you think "terms of service" is the wrong term? The article refers to it as such multiple times.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#14

Post by whatshisface »

Traster wrote: post #12
jedimastert wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go and ask the nearest 10 local-business restaurant owners what the sentence: > “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” means. I can guarantee most of them will have no idea what that means. Even if they knew what a "microsite" was, that could mean so many different things anyways. And before you say "then they should have asked a lawyer," 1) yes, b…

Here's a crazy idea - they could literally have just e-mailed grubhub asking "Hey, I'm reading through the contract you sent me, could you elaborate on clause X"

Would they have responded? I can't think of a single time when I had any chance to negotiate a TOS.

Besides, even if they changed the onboarding process into an old-style contract negotiation, constantly having to deal with the devil, weeding out his sly contractual tricks, is a cost that can add up in terms of stress and man-hours. Most people would rather just choose business partners that aren't trying to trick them.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#15

Post by floatingatoll »

GrubHub says that restaurants have it wrong by citing fine print.

Restaurants want first right of refusal over the use of their brand, not default opt-in by a third party buried in legalspeak.

GrubHub is trying to reframe this issue in legalistic terms, to distract from their failure to collect explicit opt-ins from every restaurant they’ve used in this manner.

It’s unfortunate that the headline enables that change in perception by readers.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#16

Post by JasonFruit »

iwantagrinder wrote: post #8
JasonFruit wrote: post #3

Short form: the restaurants didn't read the TOS, and they have been treated with more consideration than that document requires. GrubHub has done nothing wrong, and even went out of its way to do the right thing.

Terrifying how we have people taking the side of a TOS belonging to a shitty gig economy startup over small business owning human beings

If the human beings don't read the contacts they sign, they won't be owning a business for long. If GrubHub put it in writing, and another business didn't bother to figure out what it was signing, I can't see how it's GrubHub's fault.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#17

Post by sokoloff »

simonw wrote: post #10

> The second item in terms of service signed by restaurant owners states that Grubhub “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” I would not have realized that "obtain the URL" meant "purchase a domain name" if I read this.

What else would it mean that would not include the possibility to purchase a domain name for this purpose?

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#18

Post by throwaway2048 »

Traster wrote: post #12
jedimastert wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go and ask the nearest 10 local-business restaurant owners what the sentence: > “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” means. I can guarantee most of them will have no idea what that means. Even if they knew what a "microsite" was, that could mean so many different things anyways. And before you say "then they should have asked a lawyer," 1) yes, b…

Here's a crazy idea - they could literally have just e-mailed grubhub asking "Hey, I'm reading through the contract you sent me, could you elaborate on clause X"

Do you think that such obtuse terminology was accidental? I promise you it wasn't.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#19

Post by criddell »

JasonFruit wrote: post #16
iwantagrinder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrifying how we have people taking the side of a TOS belonging to a shitty gig economy startup over small business owning human beings

If the human beings don't read the contacts they sign, they won't be owning a business for long. If GrubHub put it in writing, and another business didn't bother to figure out what it was signing, I can't see how it's GrubHub's fault.

> If the human beings don't read the contacts they sign, they won't be owning a business for long.

That's bullshit and you know it. They may be naive thinking an internet company like Grub Hub will act decently, but that doesn't make the restaurant operators wrong.

It's too bad software developers and startup people don't have to go through a course on ethics to gain certification like professional engineers do.

Re: Facing fury over ‘fake websites,’ Grubhub says restaurants have it wrong

#20

Post by JasonFruit »

jedimastert wrote: post #9
JasonFruit wrote: post #3

Short form: the restaurants didn't read the TOS, and they have been treated with more consideration than that document requires. GrubHub has done nothing wrong, and even went out of its way to do the right thing.

Go and ask the nearest 10 local-business restaurant owners what the sentence: > “may create, maintain and operate a microsite (“MS”) and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant’s behalf.” means. I can guarantee most of them will have no idea what that means. Even if they knew what a "microsite" was, that could mean so many different things anyways. And before you say "then they should have asked a lawyer," 1) yes, b…

If the business owners didn't understand what they were signing — not misunderstood, but simply couldn't figure it out, as seems most likely here — but they signed it anyway instead of figuring it out or asking an expert, I can't see how they have anyone to blame here but themselves. I'm not even being intentionally contrarian, as I sometimes might; I really can't see why GrubHub is being blamed.
Post reply on HN