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

latimes.com

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

#21

Post by isoskeles »

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…

Ignorance isn't a real excuse here, definitely not enough to make me take sides between two businesses.

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

#22

Post by JasonFruit »

criddell wrote: post #19
JasonFruit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really don't know that's bullshit. Please accept the idea that sometimes people might honestly disagree with you.

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

#23

Post by hdfbdtbcdg »

sokoloff wrote: post #17
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?

URL ≠ domain. I would assume it meant that there would be a URL under the other company's domain. Not that they would register a new domain with my branding!

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

#24

Post by hdfbdtbcdg »

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.

If the TOS are unclear. Contacts favour the weaker non-drafting party.

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

#25

Post by wnevets »

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.

I agree, I would assume that meant grubhub.com/mybrand or something to that effect.

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

#26

Post by Stratoscope »

sokoloff wrote: post #17
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?

Put yourself in someone else's shoes for a moment...

You're a mom and pop restaurant owner. Maybe new to the country. You put all your savings into this. Now you're making your delicious family recipes and people are enjoying them. And paying you! And hopefully coming back for more.

You're barely making ends meet, but you hope the business will grow from word of mouth.

Now a delivery service comes along. You know your margins will be low on those orders after their cut, but hey, it keeps you busy and maybe you can hire another cook.

Pop quiz! What's a "microsite", and what's a "URL"? You may have heard of one of those things, but what is the other? Something from Microsoft?

Nonetheless, you need the business, and you sign up because you have a customer waiting for dinner and you have to get back to cooking.

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

#27

Post by _jal »

isoskeles wrote: post #21
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…

Ignorance isn't a real excuse here, definitely not enough to make me take sides between two businesses.

If you are unable to see a power disparity between a public company and a mom 'n pop restaurant, I don't know how to help.

Power disparity is an element of contract review.

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

#28

Post by failrate »

floatingatoll wrote: post #15

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 i…

Correct. GrubHub is typo-squatting, and at best are in some form of trademark violation.

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

#29

Post by shay_ker »

To be honest, not a great look from Matt. It's entirely possible that a lot of this was a misunderstanding, since microsites is literally a product feature that GrubHub sales folks use to sell to restaurant owners (among several, several other features that GrubHub provides).

One could imagine that this was mainly a communication error, and it could've been fixed by updating GrubHub's sales processes.

But Matt saying that restaurants have it wrong? It's just... not a smart thing to do. GrubHub has a symbiotic relationship with restaurant owners, and they gain nothing from insulting restaurant owners.

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

#30

Post by wvenable »

shay_ker wrote: post #29

To be honest, not a great look from Matt. It's entirely possible that a lot of this was a misunderstanding, since microsites is literally a product feature that GrubHub sales folks use to sell to restaurant owners (among several, several other features that GrubHub provides). One could imagine that this was mainly a communication error, and it could've been fixed by updating GrubHub's sales processes. But Matt saying…

They might have not-insignificant potential revenue losses if they have to remove these micro-sites.
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