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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

#191

Post by jakelazaroff »

syshum wrote: post #186
ummonk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why enforce existing law, we can you use this opportunity to create ever more complex laws to ensure stake holders that already abused to the condition the law is purporting to address can maintain their advantage and ensure no new entrants to the market That is all this does, it protect GrubHub, DoorDash and other large players from competition

How, specifically, does this protect GrubHub/DoorDash/etc?

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

#192

Post by jimmaswell »

josefx wrote: post #142
dogma1138 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they made a profit off this?

The goal is to kill the competition, no local delivery service can compete with a few million in VC funding. Once you are the only delivery in town you can raise the prices all you want and force the local restaurants into one sided deals on your terms. It also has a rather questionable legality

> no local delivery service can compete with a few million in VC funding

A simple ordering form on the restaurant's own website always gets preference from me and seems to usually end up being the first result on Google/Google Maps.

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

#193

Post by Cyclone_ »

DGAP wrote: post #190

HN is so strangely anti tech and anti startup at this point. I'm not sure exactly who's on the platform at this point. Unemployed OSS devs bitter that everyone else in the valley is making more money than them?

I don't really view this as anti-tech or anti-startup at all. These kind of laws make sense regardless of whether a small or large company is committing the offense.

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

#194

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

weego wrote: post #126
Causality1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s getting downvoted because it seems to be phrased in a deliberately inflammatory way. You can (and others downthread have) express the same idea that many restaurants can’t afford the expense in a manner more likely to lead to productive discussion.

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

#195

Post by dghughes »

newman8r wrote: post #183
learc83 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment. But you basically have no recourse if you get food poisoning from a restaurant. Unless it’s a mass event, there’s no way for you to prove it was the restaurant, and even if you could prove it, your damages aren’t likely to be enough to sue.

I had an old roommate try to sue in-n-out after getting severe food poisoning. It actually went to court - the in-n-out attorney completely destroyed him, he was outgunned. They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported. Reporting food poisoning if it ever happens to you (even if minor) could be the difference between someone else being believed of…

>They showed receipts for thousands of people who ate there that day and that there weren't any other cases reported.

It makes you wonder: did the lawyer call each one of those thousands of people, did anyone get sick but didn't realize it was the burger, time could be an issue too maybe a few lettuce leaves had listeria on them but it only grew to levels after a certain time and temperature.

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

#196

Post by jimmaswell »

mysterydip wrote: post #108
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…

This exact thing is happening to one of my favorite local pizza places. Very frustrating for them.

They're frustrated by free advertising and new customers?

The smart thing to do is krep taking the business and just put a leaflet in the pizza box/whatever saying ordering directly is cheaper/faster, if that's the case.

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

#197

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

DGAP wrote: post #190

HN is so strangely anti tech and anti startup at this point. I'm not sure exactly who's on the platform at this point. Unemployed OSS devs bitter that everyone else in the valley is making more money than them?

People sick of all the terrible, exploitative, world-worsening things that modern tech companies seems to be all about?

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

#198

Post by ratww »

kgantchev wrote: post #161
MichaelApproved wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating and defending a trademark is very expensive. Many restaurants would prefer not to spend this money just to prevent unauthorized listings. They’d rather delegate the responsibility of preventing unauthorized listings to the state attorney who has more resources and expertise.

That's not true. A trademark costs around $300: https://www.uspto.gov/trademark/trademark-fee-information Enforcing it is free: you can send your own cease and desist for free. The only time you need a lawyer is if they refuse and you want to sue them. If the court rules in your favor, you can even sue them for the legal costs and costs of damages.

Sorry for the cynicism, but I really don't understand why is it ok to ask small restaurants to spend $200-300 bucks and send a cease and desist letter, but it's not ok for the law to ask investor-backed startups to make a friendly contact to those same restaurants before using their brand.

In the end it's less work for the investor-backed business, since with the C&D route they would need to register domains or create pages for restaurants that don't want the service only for their (very expensive!) legal department to receive a letter so they can delete everything.

I mean just send an email to the restaurant so they can submit an authorization beforehand... tell them the advantages, let them make the decision...

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

#199

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

swyx wrote: post #15

always entertaining how regulation unintentionally acts to increase barriers to entry for incumbents. in this case closing the barn doors almost a decade after the horse left the stable. you couldn't pay politicians enough for the favors they perform in earnest. edit:to elaborate, the growth hacks of the likes of Doordash and Postmates doing exactly this got them their start, now it will be illegal to compete with th…

> growth hacks

Tech speak for: breaking the law.

But hey, money, so who cares if we ruin a bunch of lives and make the world a worse place? Isn't that what technology is all about?

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

#200

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ratww wrote: post #74
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?

I think the core issue here is that some platforms were creating websites and phone numbers to impersonate the companies. In practice it's a man-in-the-middle attack. This is what the law seems to intend to stop. I'm pretty sure that if I falsified a website to resell services or products on behalf of a larger company I would get slapped by a lawsuit, trademark or otherwise, but it seems that for small restaurants th…

I don't think so? Its that you cant claim to be an agent of a company if you have no financial/contractual connection with the company. Image some sleazy guy went around town pretending to work for you. Its illegal.
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