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California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

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Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#121

Post by powerapple »

minot wrote: post #104
powerapple wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. That's nice. I can see from the trademark point of view, it makes sense to stop other people from listing your business in their list, brands should be protected. But providing a service for customer should be legal. It would be the same as Taxi drivers should be able to pick you up from your home to a business without the permission of the business.

But I bet I can’t start a taxi service and call it Uber Shuttle Service for job applicants and build a website with Uber logo, phone number, and everything and when job applicants call me I pretend to be Uber? Hey why stop there? maybe I can ask the job applicants for their personal information letting them believe they are talking to Uber and if they look like good candidates, I can build a website with information…

Yes. That's unfortunately how internet business work these days, use 'strategy' to dominate the market, and it has the power to dictate terms and profit from it. Although Walmart market dominance are protected with the shops and locations they own, apps such as Uber or Doordash where it is mainly a utility, the market dominance is not protected in any way. Once they start to charge more to make a profit, consumer can always go for an alternative app for it.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#122

Post by mytailorisrich »

Slartie wrote: post #119
mytailorisrich wrote: post #113

This in effect says that it is illegal to pay someone to collect your own food from a restaurant without the restaurant's agreement (only if the service is offered online, though) This does not make much sense. Legislators should not rush into kneejerk and populist reactions.

No, it is just illegal if that someone pretends to have some sort of reseller contract with the restaurant in order to acquire you as a customer. If you go to some guy, ask him to pick up food for you and the guy agrees for a fee, that's okay. But the incentive must have come from your side, and the guy must not have used the name of the restaurant to advertise for his services or even pretend to be a "part" of the r…

The link states: "This bill would enact the Fair Food Delivery Act of 2020, to prohibit a food delivery platform from arranging for the delivery of an order from a food facility without first obtaining an agreement with the food facility... "

No question of pretending anything, just literally of doing what you suggest (food pickup for a fee, if that is arranged through an online platform)

Using the names of the restaurants you are able to collect from in order to describe your service is obviously fair use of the names.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#123

Post by 29athrowaway »

foobar1962 wrote: post #6

There was a post a few months go about a pizza place that started getting customers complaining about their food arriving cold and damaged: except they didn't offer delivery. They discovered that a popular search engine was offering free delivery. The story ended with them ordering dozens of pizzas from themselves to themselves and making a nice profit.

Reminds me of the story of Don Johnson, a professional blackjack player who made $6,000,000 in one night.

Because he is a known high stakes player, the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City invited him over and gave him a discount ("loss rebate") on chips.

Because of this 10% rebase on loss, even when his blackjack win-rate was below 50%, he would still make more money that what he lost.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man...

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#124

Post by ghaff »

ramphastidae wrote: post #105

This is undeniably a good thing if you put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant. Imagine if someone went around impersonating your business online, leveraging the good name you have built for yourself over the decades. They create ads offering your expert development services, ostensibly competing with your existing website, but with intentionally slashed pricing and a ‘creatively’ misrepresented offering (aka gro…

The misrepresentation would seem to be the big thing. Someone, let's call them Joe, publishes a list of restaurants online with links to their menus and offers to deliver for the price of the order with tip plus a $10 delivery fee. And has a clear disclaimer that they're not affiliated with the businesses. That seems pretty unobjectionable. And how would the restaurant even know? [ADDED: Subject of course to any health regulations that might apply to food delivery.]

But that, of course, is not what any of these services do.

There is still an argument that some foods just aren't a good match for delivery and, disclaimer or not, some consumers will still tend to blame Sally's Piping Hot Burgers when their burger arrives soggy and cold (or, worse, because of mishandling someone gets sick) rather than think that maybe they should have just gone and picked it up themselves or just not gotten burger take-out. So Sally should maybe have a right to refuse to sell to anyone other than the end consumer. But that seems trickier.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#125

Post by ozim »

XorNot wrote: post #120
mytailorisrich wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are skipping quite a few steps here by jumping to "impersonating a business online", which I suspect is already illegal. This bill says that it would be illegal to pick food on behalf of someone else without the restaurant's agreement (if you're an online platform). The is no question of dishonesty or impersonation, just of offering this service. This is quite an extreme restriction, IMHO, and seems to be a kneej…

Why? The practice involved is in response to the absolute garbage of misrepresentation of a restaurant's telephone number to be intercepted by your own call centre's.

Because if would like to have a honest delivery service that is not faking some restaurant, with the new law you will not be able to provide such service.

It will be a lot more hassle to pick up something.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#126

Post by weego »

Causality1 wrote: post #115
ummonk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that require anything other than enforcement of existing trademark law?

Because civil laws only protect people rich enough to hire lawyers.

I don't know why this is getting down voted, its absolutely naive to assume this isn't how it plays out in the real world.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#127

Post by Slartie »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #122
Slartie wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is just illegal if that someone pretends to have some sort of reseller contract with the restaurant in order to acquire you as a customer. If you go to some guy, ask him to pick up food for you and the guy agrees for a fee, that's okay. But the incentive must have come from your side, and the guy must not have used the name of the restaurant to advertise for his services or even pretend to be a "part" of the r…

The link states: " This bill would enact the Fair Food Delivery Act of 2020, to prohibit a food delivery platform from arranging for the delivery of an order from a food facility without first obtaining an agreement with the food facility... " No question of pretending anything, just literally of doing what you suggest (food pickup for a fee, if that is arranged through an online platform) Using the names of the rest…

Look closely. It is just illegal for the food delivery platform to arrange for a delivery. It is NOT illegal for YOU to arrange for a delivery to you, even if you do that through an online platform. Go to Craigslist and offer some dollars to anyone who picks up your food at a takeout place and delivers it to you.

You don't have a problem at all with this new legislation, unless of course you want to be the shady middleman. But that's kind of the purpose.

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#128

Post by ghaff »

caf wrote: post #86
carbonx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issues is a problem of transparency. I deliver for Postmates and I really think that most of the customers don't really understand that they might be ordering from a restaurant that isn't partnered with Postmates. The knock on effect is that often the menu isn't really correct, so the customer gets their order "wrong" and calls the restaurant to complain.

It seems like a form of passing-off, which has long been regarded as worthy of proscription.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but companies (and individuals) pass off things all the time. Shipping is perhaps the most obvious example. If I'm an eBay seller and ship something to you, once I give you a tracking number, it's mostly between you and UPS. (Unless, e.g., an item was improperly packed and UPS won't honor a claim, etc.)

Re: California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement

#130

Post by vkou »

ummonk wrote: post #109
ramphastidae wrote: post #105

This is undeniably a good thing if you put yourself in the shoes of the restaurant. Imagine if someone went around impersonating your business online, leveraging the good name you have built for yourself over the decades. They create ads offering your expert development services, ostensibly competing with your existing website, but with intentionally slashed pricing and a ‘creatively’ misrepresented offering (aka gro…

Why does that require anything other than enforcement of existing trademark law?

Because most restaurant owners want to be in the business of running a restaurant, not litigating some out-of-state entities with billion-dollar warchests.

Doing the former is working two full-time jobs, as is.

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