California law bans delivery apps from listing a restaurant without an agreement • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by Slartie » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #321

Slartie wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had to produce something that could legally be called a pizza to at least fulfill the purchase contract with DoorDash and avoid making themselves legally liable. But what would probably have worked would be to pull this off with two restaurants, each ordering pizzas from the other, with them sending the same physical pizzas around all the time. Cold and old pizza is still legally a pizza, just a bad one.

They have to claim that they made something that met the definition of pizza, but with the “buyer”, driver, and store colluding they could just lie.

The first buyer is DoorDash however, and if they somehow want to take vengeance on you after you managed draining their funds in an otherwise perfectly legal way, they might just use the non-fulfillment of their initial purchase contracts as a wedge to take you to court (of course this assumes they somehow learned about that detail of your plan). I don't know if they would have any luck with that, but it's easy to prevent this from happening by actually delivering something that's basically a minimally viable pizza.

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

#332

Post by cleak » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

This seems like a very broad solution to a very specific (albeit large) problem. The main thing I keep seeing mentioned is impersonation. That can be solved without requiring explicit agreements, and may be counterproductive in some cases.

Imagine Joe’s Tapas actually needs to rely on deliveries during COVID and isn’t equipped to do it themselves. With this law they’d need an explicit contract with GrubHub or the like and that would surely include “we can do business using the Joe’s Tapas name for X”. There’d be no room to change the contact and even less protection for Joe’s Tapas having their brand ruined.

Why not solve the more narrow impersonation problem? Explicit transparency requirements and hefty fines for companies that run aground of them.

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

#333

Post by zackkitzmiller » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #249

listenallyall wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lots of items have incredibly short shelf-lives as well. I spent nearly a decade in the live event ticketing industry so I'll focus on that.

A significant precent of ticket sales are last minute. A friend tagging a long or someone waiting for prices to drop. Food spoils and looses quality fast, but so do good from many industries. I think carving out an exception for food is potentially a slippery slope.

It would probably be better to carve out exceptions for any item that could potentially be worthless after some amount of time. Live event tickets, food, travel, etc.

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

#334

Post by nrmitchi » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

This feels kind of like some sort of regulatory capture by DoorDash, etc now that they are big enough.

Is there any way that this wouldn’t stifle any new competition?

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

#335

Post by hedora » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

smarx007 wrote: post #315

I think it would have been much better to outlaw misrepresentation and advertising without prior agreement (ie the pizza place that did not agree to partnership should only pop up in the search results if the user searches for it) and there should be a warning mandated like "Startup Inc is not affiliated with the Moms and Pops Pizza. If you proceed, we will place your order by calling PHONE_NUMBER and pick up your or…

Agreed. Misrepresenting the relationship with the restaurants is the problem, not the existence of the delivery service.

As written, the bill seems so poorly thought out that I wonder if the authors has some alternate motive. Regulatory capture, maybe?

Also, this doesn’t ban setting up fake websites to take orders, and then forwarding them to hapless restaurant owners.

Honestly, just enforcing existing trademark law would be more effective.

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

#336

Post by j45 » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

This is a good idea, I’ve heard how unscrupulous some apps have been to effectively hijack the identity and contact points of private businesses without consent.

It’s one thing to want to own the demand for food, it’s another thing to take it away from small business owners.

It’s worth going out of your way to order by a verified phone number, or recommend small restaurants install their own affordable platform like gloriafoods and keep their margins during the pandemic.

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

#337

Post by j45 » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #124

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 heal…

It’s a form of domain squatting if someone lists as you, above you in search, leaving some customers frustrated and likely picking someone else, forever.

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

#338

Post by VBprogrammer » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

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…

More pondering than a serious question; would it make a difference if they didn't rely on the original business name and reputation? For example, if I created a fictitious "Lucky Dog Chinese" and in fact delivered food provided by the "Lucky Cat Chinese" would that be disagreeable? Almost like dropshipping for restaurants.

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

#339

Post by balls187 » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

alisonkisk wrote: post #229

RHSeeger wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is how to allow the former while preventing the latter, in a way that is reasonable for small businesses.

Just prosecute the fraudulent misrepresentation of the restaurant.

Lawsuits aren't cheap both in terms of time and money.

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

#340

Post by jeltz » Fri, Jan 01, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #188

NineStarPoint wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is likely that our legal system is too expensive for local restaurant owners to afford the cost of suing a grubhub sized company. Restaurants are a business notoriously prone to failure and low margins. Maybe a class action lawsuit would work in this case, but mostly it’s just another case where the legal system needs to be fixed to rely less on having money for justice to occur.

This is what Class Actions, and Business organizations are suppose to be for Also nothing is stopping the AG of the state from forming a Fraud case agaist the major players. The excuse of "well the courts cost too much money" is not abated by creating even more complex laws that will still require an expensive lawyer to enforce in reality this law is designed to protect those companies that already made billions on a…

Expect class action obviously does not work, because is not like existing laws have stopped it. But yes, the solution might not be more laws but rather overhaul of the legal system to make it possible to enforce existing laws.