GrubHub is buying up thousands of restaurant web addresses

This is a variant on the scam of making a local locksmith or tow link, SEOing it to the top of of Google's results, and then charging a fee and outsourcing the work. The web was supposed to be a disintermediating force but it's just as much been an opportunity for gratuitous toll-collectors.

Google appears to profit from this so apparently makes no effort to prevent this. It's been going on for years: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/fake-online-lock...

Real site: https://www.1000degreespizza.com/

Grubhub scam: http://www.1000degreesneapolitanpizzeriamiami.com/ Check the order link. They have over 23000 of these domains.

>Additionally, it appears GrubHub has set up several generic, templated pages that look like real restaurant websites but in fact link only to GrubHub. These pages also display phone numbers that GrubHub controls.

That reads a bit like some of the Google Maps type hijacking that takes place where someone takes control of a google maps business listing who doesn't actually own that business in order to intercept the business.

>GrubHub’s fee structure is based on its marketing services. If a customer finds out about a restaurant in the platform’s app or through a GrubHub-run promotion, the platform can charge the restaurant a higher commission, because it’s bringing in new business. Likewise, if a customer navigates from a restaurant’s real web page to GrubHub’s ordering system to place their order, GrubHub’s commission is smaller than it would be if the customer “discovered” the restaurant on the platform, because the customer clearly already knew about the restaurant and is simply using GrubHub’s services to place an order. The shadow pages complicate this equation: If a customer Googles a restaurant’s name and lands on a GrubHub-owned site that looks like a real restaurant’s site, who should get the commission? And is it fair if GrubHub can outrank its own restaurants on search engines?

It would seem GrubHub has created a system where they incentivize themselves to take over people's web presence.... heck maybe even places that DON"T use GrubHub...

The internet is supposed to give the little guys at least a fighting chance - over and over, we see these shitty big companies (yelp, airbnb, etc, now grubhub) screwing those who can't fight back. Makes me so mad, isn't there anything that we can do?

I had already switched to Uber Eats because GrubHub's deliveries were horrendously unreliable. Now I have another reason to never do business with them ever again.