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Comment by arbuge | Hacker News Reader

If you read the article to the end they claim they're not cybersquatting. Sounds pretty disingenuous to me. One of the rationales given is that they'll transfer the domain to the restaurant if the latter requests it. Most of those restaurant owners probably won't know what's going on, or who to ask to have the domain transferred to them, or that they could even ask.

Edit: The text of their response is quite curious. In part it reads: "Additionally, we have registered domains on their behalf, consistent with our restaurant contracts. We no longer provide that service..."

If I were to guess, the fact that they'd be registering these domains was something slipped into the small print of their original contracts. Most restaurant owners probably wouldn't have noticed or understood the implications. The practice could have then been discontinued once it served its purposes of getting (or helping to get) Grubhub up to scale.

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The pizza delivery app Slice does something similar... they buy domains that look like they could be legitimate and then outrank the actual website of the small local pizza shops with SEO. Then they tack on additional Slice fees and send the order through to the pizza place. Here’s an example:

Actual site: http://www.mariostogo.com/

Slice scam site: https://www.mariospizzaphiladelphia.com/

Most of these small pizza shops have no idea this is happening and Slice is just ripping off customers. They even claim listings or suggest edits on yelp, foursquare, google, etc. with their Slice domain so customers assume it’s the shop’s actual site. I wish someone from Yelp, Google, etc. would blacklist Slice sites and kill the company and their scammy business practices.

Edit: I forgot to mention they created fake phone numbers for the shops too which is what alerted me to this scam in the first place. I googled the number for Mario’s and called it but a young female answered the phone and I heard call center chatter in the background... normally when calling Mario’s one of the guys with a thick accent answers and speaks in broken English. I’ve never seen a single female employee work there in the 15 years I’ve been ordering from them. On top of it all, the delivery address got screwed up between my call in order that Slice intercepted and Slice then calling the actual Mario’s number to relay my order. Come to think of it, I payed with a credit card over the phone so Slice took my CC info and then relayed that as well... that doesn’t seem kosher.

(I now have the real Mario’s number stored as a contact in my phone.)

That is utterly diabolical.

Interestingly the prices appear to be identical on these two websites (but it's still quite scary to see this happening).

They're probably taking a commission on the orders coming in through the bogus website or call center. The call center is what really gets me. I can understand how the website with a much better seo rank could drive more business to a mom and pop shop, but supplanting a legitimate phone number on yelp or wherever else is seriously shady.

Home advisor also does telephone # MITM.

Yep, terrible company. I made the mistake of calling them to get my roof repaired... actually I didn't call them but some bogus website for a local roofing company led me to those shady clowns. I chose a local contracting company instead and they did a really good job as far as I can tell. No leaks after a year and a half.

I realized that they even copy the logo. Is this even legal? How can it be in any way legal to "impersonate" a business, just to funnel business away into a funnel that forces the business to pay fees.

Maybe this is a case of we're a giant corporation and why don't you please sue us?

Seems analogous to buying a product from a retail shop then reselling it in your own shop with a markup. If your SEO is better, then you can do that successfully, and why not? The original seller was leaving money on the table or failing to reach potential customers.

You own the object after you buy it. Wherein did you pay for the use of their trademark?

It is - if you call your shop "Tesco" for example and use their logo and branding to resell Tesco stuff at a slight markup. Of course this would get you shut down very quickly in the real world. I don't know why it should be any different just because it's online.

More like pitching a stall outside your local Costco, calling it Costco, and charging dimwits a fee to enter the warehouse

> Is this even legal?

This infringes the businesses' trademarks, which exist even if not registered. They can and should be sued.

The article says grubhub uses business names and images for "businesses they either work with or are pitching to get on the platform". In the latter case there's no contract fine print to defend themselves with.

Probably the restaurants have a contract with Grubhub that allows them to use the restaurant's logo, name etc. for marketing purposes.

Slice exists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYu-d6y5HRo

How is this bad? They are providing a service. If somebody does marketing better than you, why shouldn't they be able to make money from that?

If the restaurants don't want to work with them they can just not. That they do proves that it is a net benefit.

Did you just ask how impersonation is bad?

Maybe we should create a comprehensive list of these bad companies / bad actors? Something like:

https://gitlab.com/simonebrunozzi/dark-companies/blob/master...

Please don't post duplicate comments.

Grubhub's official statement appears to not understand what cybersquatting actually means, and "created the websites for them" with the ordering process still occurring through Grubhub's platform oftentimes by simply changing the TLD of a company's existing website. Since these orders would directly feed into Grubhub's service, the business could be on the hook for a percentage fee that can be as high as 35% of the order's cost. This definitely seems to fall under extortion and cybersquatting to me.

Its a legal response. The response even reads the definition of cybersquatting according to them which is that the domain was purchased as "generally bad faith registration of another person's trademark".

So GrubHub is claiming that it wasn't purchased in "bad faith" because they are helping the business get more orders. Therefore it isn't cybersquatting.

I am not saying I agree (I think all these delivery services are predatory in more ways than one), but there statement is saying that according to ICAAN's definition they are not cybersquatting. Of course this is semantics because the local business would claim that it was bought without permission and was bad faith. And that is what GrubHub's legal team wants. A discussion about the exact definition of cybersquatting that goes on for months and/or years until the small company realizes it isn't worth their time.

This is the value of class action lawsuits. While class actions are often scams in their own right, this would be a legitimate example of a class action serving its purpose. All the thousands of restaurants affected by this would get together to fight against the company. That would be enough to scare GrubHub (and others).

I love how the CEO was on his high horse just a few years ago talking about the importance of ethics. If I recall correctly, he threatened to fire anybody who voted Republican? This guy clearly shouldn't be leading any company or group of people. Is anyone surprised by this?

Restaurants and their owners are notoriously bad at the internet.

I have a friend in Seattle who became known as a reliable web developer for new restaurants.

He took credit to eat rather than cash to do this relatively simple work for them. As a result, every time I’d visit we’d eat at some nice newer place on his credit line, responsible only for tips. It felt like minor celebrity.

I suppose this is what newer website platforms are for but frankly I think even weebly is somehow too much for many.

> He took credit to eat rather than cash to do this relatively simple work for them.

The good old tax dodge.

Meh, it’s still taxable income that has to be reported :)

Shall we bet on whether it was reported or not?

He was a VP for a big tech co in Seattle, and was getting $300-400 a site so this was more about knowing the restaurant community and doing a hobby not some elaborate tax scheme.

You can dodge more taxes in Seattle driving down to Portland to buy a MacBook.

Sorry, but that just isn't how it works. If you perform a service for restaurants and you don't invoice them but eat there instead of getting paid that's two helpings of tax fraud. Whether it is 'for a hobby' or not is irrelevant, someone else who did play by the book and for who it wasn't a hobby probably missed a bunch of sales because your buddy was willing to do this 'on the side' for shit & giggles because he already had an income stream.

> Most of those restaurant owners probably won't know what's going on, or who to ask to have the domain transferred to them, or that they could even ask.

That's assuming you don't have to hire a lawyer to send a strongly-worded letter to them. Given the thin margins many restaurants operate under, it would be easier for many places to not bother, especially since GrubHub relays the orders, so even if the order goes to the wrong address they still get their money.

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