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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

#241

Post by enragedcacti »

jopsen wrote: post #103
foobar1962 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you're the restaurant, I'm the delivery guy. I pickup your meals and deliver them to your customers. On the way the meals go cold (or hot) and get damaged. Your customers aren't happy and want their money back. My actions have made your service look bad, your customers unhappy and cost you money. You didn't know I was delivering your food!

Isn't this exactly the kind of thing trademark laws is supposed to cover? I'm pretty sure that if you tried to resell food at scale from a major fast food franchise without proper licensing, you would get sued.

The major fast food franchises aren't the people this law is protecting, its Joe Blow's Pizza Shack that can't afford a lawsuit against Doordash.

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

#242

Post by judge2020 »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #218
ghaff wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 heal…

> And has a clear disclaimer that they're not affiliated with the businesses. This isn’t actually clear. GrubHub’s about page: “ Grubhub is a leading online and mobile food-ordering and delivery marketplace with the largest and most comprehensive network of restaurant partners. ” This tells me as a customer that the restaurant is a consenting partner. This is a lie. EDIT: a commentor below had issue with my use of th…

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

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

#244

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

alisonkisk wrote: post #220
jakelazaroff wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what the law does. It addresses the problem GP pointed out, and it bans the service you’ve described as well. It also doesn’t forbid you from paying someone to pick your food up for you. Here’s the relevant text: > 22599. A food delivery platform shall not arrange for the delivery of an order from a food facility without first obtaining an agreement with the food facility expressly authorizing the food del…

Why should a restaurant be allowed to ban me from hiring someone to deliver for me?

Are you a delivery platform? The law only applies to delivery platforms. If you want to hire an individual contractor(or just casually pay your buddy 3$ to pick up a pizza for you) you can still do so.

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

#245

Post by listenallyall »

m3kw9 wrote: post #228
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…

If my resturant didn’t sign up for a middle man, don’t force yourself in between. That seems reasonable

Careful there... Apple (or any manufacturer) could say the same thing about Ebay. Any sports team or band could say it about Stubhub. Nike could say it about StockX.

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

#246

Post by Ekaros »

wayne wrote: post #184
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…

It does seem messed up that we see a bad behavior, create a law to ban that behavior, and the law's biggest beneficiary is the company doing the bad behavior.

On other hand should then the bad behaviour be allowed to continue forever? Isn't something late better than never?

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

#247

Post by novia »

jimmaswell wrote: post #213
novia wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now restaurants are in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation with the various delivery services out there. If the restaurants explicitly agree to do business with grubhub and the like, they have to give the delivery service a 10% cut. The delivery service also takes a percentage cut on the customer side. I think there's the expectation that the restaurants keep charging the delivery service the same…

So in the second scenario, you get to keep on selling food for full price and the delivery companies generate business for you for free, but it's a bad deal because .. a few people might leave bad reviews on yelp when something is clearly DoorDash's fault? It sounds like a good deal to me. You get bad reviews from idiots no matter what anyway.

In the second scenario you will not be able to pay the waiters you had on staff before the pandemic. There's nothing for them to do (assuming the restaurant moves to carryout only, as is currently mandated in DC.) You get paid for the food from the delivery service, but you don't see any tips.

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

#248

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #225
Ekaros wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is anyway unreasonable for such service to come to agreement with the restaurant. And absolutely beneficial for both parties.

The question is whether it should be required . If a restaurant welcomes takeaway orders then whether you order and collect in person or hire someone to do it on your behalf is irrelevant. That's why I think this bill is ill-thought-out. If there are shady practices taking place then they should be dealt with with existing legislation and, if needed, with new legislation specifically targeting these practices. Instea…

> If a restaurant welcomes takeaway orders then whether you order and collect in person or hire someone to do it on your behalf is irrelevant.

This is a big if, because existing outcry already belies that this assumption is actually not reality.

Besides, if that’s the case it should be super easy to call the restaurant and ask to be a partner. You can mail them stickers to advertise for your delivery platform by pasting it on their doors/windows. “Official GrubHub partner” could even be a badge of legitimacy because GrubHub needs to protect their reputation as a source of good restaurants.

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

#249

Post by chongli »

listenallyall wrote: post #245
m3kw9 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my resturant didn’t sign up for a middle man, don’t force yourself in between. That seems reasonable

Careful there... Apple (or any manufacturer) could say the same thing about Ebay. Any sports team or band could say it about Stubhub. Nike could say it about StockX.

I think we can carve out an exception specifically for food and food services. Why? Because of the extremely limited shelf life of hot food. That’s what sets it apart from your other examples.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

alisonkisk wrote: post #220
jakelazaroff wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what the law does. It addresses the problem GP pointed out, and it bans the service you’ve described as well. It also doesn’t forbid you from paying someone to pick your food up for you. Here’s the relevant text: > 22599. A food delivery platform shall not arrange for the delivery of an order from a food facility without first obtaining an agreement with the food facility expressly authorizing the food del…

Why should a restaurant be allowed to ban me from hiring someone to deliver for me?

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