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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

#131

Post by s_dev »

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?

Despite the downvotes -- I think there is a genuine question here. There isn't the need for more laws just enforcement of existing ones.

Purporting to represent someone elses business is an egregious infringement of trademark.

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

#132

Post by Ensorceled »

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.

This should not be down voted. The idea that a popular little family owned and operated Indian restaurant named "Bombay Curry" and still reeling from COVID-19 restrictions can some how sue Skip the Diehes or Uber Eats for Trademark infringement is absolutely ludicrous.

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

#133

Post by mytailorisrich »

Slartie wrote: post #127
mytailorisrich wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 midd…

This is a rather disingenuous take.

There is nothing shady in arranging food deliveries. This bill is ill-thought-out.

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

#134

Post by ghaff »

jopsen wrote: post #102
WalterBright wrote: post #65

If a person decides to buy a pizza from X and then sell it to Y, don't they have a right to?

Not if you're using X branding to market the pizza to Y. Especially, not if the pizza being resold doesn't live up to X quality standards because it got cold. Try reselling from any major fast food restaurant, they'll stop selling to you, and if you paid different people to do the pickup, I bet you would get sued.

Is that true? I've never used any of these services but, around where I live, I'd say most of the listed restaurants are national fast food chains. Of course, these companies may well have agreements will all of them.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] »

ozim wrote: post #125
XorNot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by alexander-litty »

aquadrop wrote: post #93
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.

Then the law should be about making it clear status of the restaurant. Just forbidding everything seems like wide sweep action that can stifle a lot of other good/innovative business models. Not something government should do.

It is far more unpredictable to litigate based on intent and public perception.

If an app displays a phone number but doesn’t say it belongs to the restaurant, is that making the current partnership clear or unclear? It’s a question left to precedent, which means there is a chance the legislation would not have teeth.

Instead of throwing restaurant owners into that mess, the new law we have today forbids a specific set of provable behaviors.

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

#137

Post by lmilcin »

Only problem with this is definitions. Why does it need to refer to "online delivery platforms" when it could refer to anybody that poses to deliver the food for you without express permission of the business owner?

I mean, if the worry is that the owner should be able to have say in how the food is to be delivered, it should not matter how the actual order was made, whether it was through online platform, by phone, mail or pigeon?

So, if I somehow do this without "online" component then it is fine?

Why does half of the law need to be so specific and reactive instead of setting principles for how people should live and cooperate together?

Imagine US Constitution referred to unimpeded travel by horse or train or by foot instead of unimpeded travel in general.

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

#138

Post by eloff »

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.

Yeah, this is the legal system in a nutshell. Don't think you're safe in any meaningful way because the law says so. At the end of the day you would have to litigate it yourself and that is usually not worth it unless the offense is truly egregious.

Against an adversary with deep pockets like a corporation, you can lose even if you win. This is how patent trolls extort companies, litigating a patent suite is usually a seven figure endeavor. And there's no guarantee you win. It's cheaper to pay the licensing free from the trolls, who are smart enough to make sure it's always less than the cost of litigating.

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

#139

Post by ghaff »

ehnto wrote: post #77
AmericanChopper wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law prohibits a courier from being commissioned to place an order, collect it, and deliver it to you. It’s just criminalizing a perfectly legitimate form of arbitrage. The law isn’t about couriers impersonating restaurants either, because that’s just fraud and it’s already illegal. It’s just another example of a terrible law created at the behest of businesses that aren’t competent enough to keep up with changes…

This is going to sound a bit curmudgeonly, but why should hospitality bend over to some tech middlemen? Not every industry needs to "innovate" their way into surviving the VC bubble's attempts to disrupt it. Hospitality is a fundamental service that's been provided for centuries, and is a cornerstone of the economy. Second to that, the law doesn't prohibit it, it just makes the delivery service seek an arrangement fi…

If these companies provide such a valuable service for people who can't get up from their computers to get or cook food, I'm sure restaurants will be lining up to sign up for their services.

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

#140

Post by tremon »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #76
supernova87a wrote: post #49

I admit that I have yet to reconcile my own somewhat conflicted feelings about these recent bills (e.g. the one voted on in Nov 2020 about drivers as contractors, versus this one). For example, I'm in favor of regulating tech companies from misrepresenting restaurant menus as their own, and extracting a hefty margin off restaurants' barely-surviving profits by merely being a middleman aggregator. Yet on the other han…

I don't understand how couriers are extracting any margin from restaurants.

They don't. They make their margin by fleecing investors.
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