
Grubhub made websites for many restaurants, sometimes without owners’ knowledge - rasengan
https://www.businessinsider.com/grubhub-registered-23000-domains-sometimes-without-owners-knowledge-2019-6
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merricksb
The source article from The Verge was discussed here at time of publication in
June:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321260)

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crazygringo
If a restaurant already has a contract with GrubHub and somewhere buried in
the contract it gives GrubHub permission to do this... then it's still shady,
but owners should also be reading their contracts closely -- and for owners
who don't have a website at all, it could even be beneficial.

BUT... if GrubHub has done this (which they reportedly have, although they
seem to be denying it) for businesses they _haven 't_ signed a contract
with... then is that not _highly_ illegal? There have to be laws against false
representation in business, no? Whether cut-and-dried trademark infringement,
or otherwise?

If that's the case, I hope they get a _serious_ class-action suit against them
with massive punitive damages. It's deeply unethical and anticompetitive, and
basically smells of extortion.

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overcast
We discussed this back in June, it's a despicable practice. Even using images,
and logo from existing restaurant websites!

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kretor
This report has a screenshot of one of the domains:

[https://newfoodeconomy.org/grubhub-domain-purchases-
thousand...](https://newfoodeconomy.org/grubhub-domain-purchases-thousands-
shadow-sites/)

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tyingq
Some lawyer, somewhere, is likely drawing up a class action suit. Relatively
easy to identify and sign up clients.

~~~
unreal37
Except, you know, if Grubhub's contract with the restaurant allowed them to do
this.

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tyingq
[https://get.grubhub.com/legal/grubhub-restaurant-
terms.html](https://get.grubhub.com/legal/grubhub-restaurant-terms.html)

There appears to be some clauses that offer GH some protection. However, the
language doesn't really hint at what they ended up doing.

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mikece
If they are registering the name for the purpose of competition (or coercive
cooperation) isn't it a slam-dunk infringement lawsuit?

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neilv
I have the impression that a class action "cost of doing business, and only if
you get caught" handslap only emboldens others.

Would the following work to curtail practices like this?... Courts hit one so
hard with punitive damages, and perhaps criminal investigation, that the
company is wiped out. Then VCs decide it's bad business, and discourage
practices like that (including by not funding someone who tries it once and
expects to just serial entrepreneur if it fails), and then other companies
take notice.

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ryanmercer
"sometimes" from what I've heard elsewhere it should read "nearly all of the
time, to benefit financially".

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josefresco
My father owned a small business that this happened to. Not Grubhub but a
"yellow pages" type site set it up. The contact information was correct, so we
didn't think much of it. The site went down after a short period, most likely
whomever was funding it ran out of money. In his case it was a speculative
sales tactic.

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jbverschoor
Massive Ip Rights infringement

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qekbg
If in 2019 you haven't bothered to buy the domain name for your restaurant you
can't call this "cybersquatting", honestly.

~~~
jmkni
They're setting up domain names similar to ones the restaurants already own
(ie the restaurant owns .com, they buy .net and drive traffic to it)

