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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

#41

Post by tdhoot »

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.

You mean it's too bad people aren't forced to feel the same way about issues as you do.

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

#42

Post by silencio »

wnevets wrote: post #25
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.

as a techie and as a restaurant owner, that's pretty much my assumption too. i'm not even sure if i would try to clarify it since i would misunderstand it.

and, speaking from the perspective of having tried to negotiate similar contracts with similar companies - the people you deal with aren't any more knowledgeable than you are. they're mostly there to pressure you to sign asap above all else, and are super unhelpful in renegotiating anything on these contracts. one of them put down the wrong entity name in a contract and couldn't even fix it.

i tend to walk away from them because i'm not suffering for more business with no profit, but most business owners don't feel like they have that luxury...

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

#43

Post by hdfbdtbcdg »

sokoloff wrote: post #36
Stratoscope wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you…

So you need the business, don't have time to get into the details, have a company that takes care of those details for you, brings you an additional volume of orders that you seek, takes the commission they earned and you agreed to, and turns over the domain upon demand. It sounds like a nearly ideal business arrangement to me. I'd be far more troubled about the burying of positive reviews for people who refused to p…

What is a microsite?

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

#44

Post by cr0sh »

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.

Yeah, if I was reading that language, I would think it would be more like a "microsite" with a URL of "https://grubhub.com/r/bobspizzaria"; instead it's grubhub buying "bobspizzaria.com" (and maybe variants for all I know). That seems like a bait-and-switch.

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

whatshisface wrote: post #14
Traster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a crazy idea - they could literally have just e-mailed grubhub asking "Hey, I'm reading through the contract you sent me, could you elaborate on clause X"

Would they have responded? I can't think of a single time when I had any chance to negotiate a TOS. Besides, even if they changed the onboarding process into an old-style contract negotiation, constantly having to deal with the devil, weeding out his sly contractual tricks, is a cost that can add up in terms of stress and man-hours. Most people would rather just choose business partners that aren't trying to trick th…

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by sokoloff »

hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #43
sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you need the business, don't have time to get into the details, have a company that takes care of those details for you, brings you an additional volume of orders that you seek, takes the commission they earned and you agreed to, and turns over the domain upon demand. It sounds like a nearly ideal business arrangement to me. I'd be far more troubled about the burying of positive reviews for people who refused to p…

What is a microsite?

https://www.google.com/search?q=microsite

A small website, often targeted to a specific marketing channel or campaign.

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

#47

Post by setr »

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…

Your second point implies that it doesn’t really matter when this function was explained properly.. the outcome would have been the same

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

#48

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

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…

Agreed. Blaming the restaurants is an absolutely horrendous political play. They don't need GrubHub. There are many other operators that fill a similar niche.

Accepting responsibility for the communication error (if we can call it that) is the best way to keep a positive sentiment with restaurant owners.

Blaming the restaurant owners sends a message here -- GrubHub feels they have the upper hand by pointing to the legal language. B2B relationships are not ultimately defined by paperwork, unless grave disputes arise. The relationship is fundamentally is maintaining a good rapport.

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

#49

Post by TeMPOraL »

tdhoot wrote: post #41
criddell wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You mean it's too bad people aren't forced to feel the same way about issues as you do.

Nah, they mean too bad people are allowed to be abusive.

Using your ability to outSEO your customer to capture the money that would otherwise go to them is abuse.

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

#50

Post by shay_ker »

wvenable wrote: post #40
shay_ker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both GrubHub _and_ restaurants, yes.

The restaurants will gain if they take over the microsite and put their own content there because they won't have to pay a fee to GrubHub.

Perhaps! But remember that wouldn't work as well for merchants that use GrubHub Delivery drivers. And many restaurants owners aren't that tech-savvy.
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