When you click on a number to call the restaurant and not the restaurant answers it is fraud if the restaurant did not agree on that.

Doesn't matter if you end of providing the exact same service.

What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them.

Or what if a private entity picked up your call to 911?

Correct. Also imagine if I, acting as this middleman, captured some data about you (say your phone number) before patching you through to Apple and used that to build a database. Are folks okay with that? I'm certainly not.

>What if I picked up calls going to Apple and all I did was transfer you to the correct person. You are still getting the same service if you called Apple directly but its not legal because Apple did not give me permission to impersonate them.

You're missing the part about how GrubHub, et. al don't just pass you along, they charge 12-30% "commission" just for forwarding the call -- and they set up the fake number just so they could do so.

Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?

>Affiliate links work the same way. Are those also fraud?

IIUC, Affiliate marketing is when an online retailer pays you a commission for traffic or sales generated from your referrals.

That's not fraud or misrepresentation.

In the case of Grubhub, et. al, fake phone numbers, they aren't recommending a restaurant. They are claiming that the phone number is the restaurant. Those who call that number aren't clicking an ad because the "affiliate" promoted it. They are calling that number because they'd already decided to contact that particular restaurant, but were redirected to another entity -- with a monetary interest that harms the restaurant -- that doesn't disclose their third-party status.

And that's certainly at least unethical, if not outright fraud.

No, because affiliates are participating in an affiliate program with the consent of the business.

The phone number thing is also only affiliated businesses. There would be no way to charge them if they weren't.

>The phone number thing is also only affiliated businesses. There would be no way to charge them if they weren't.

Charge them for what? When a customer uses the GrubHub site/app to place an order, they are explicitly choosing Grubhub to service that order.

If I choose to call a restaurant rather than use the GrubHub site/app, I'm explicitly choosing to deal with the restaurant directly. As such, GrubHub isn't entitled to an "affiliate referral" fee.

When a website and/or phone number claims to be an entity that it is not, and does not disclose that fact to the customer, then charges a fee based on that deception, that's fraud.

You're searching on Grubhub and then calling through their app or website. If that isn't a referral, I'm not sure what is.

>You're searching on Grubhub and then calling through their app or website. If that isn't a referral, I'm not sure what is.

No. You're searching DDG or Google or Bing and a website for the restaurant comes up.

It says it's the restaurant. It has the menu and the phone number. But it's not the actual phone number of the restaurant. Nor is the website set up or endorsed by the restaurant.

Both are owned and controlled by a third party (in this case, GrubHub) which claims to be the restaurant, and by virtue of SEO-spamming the site to the top of the search results, you get that site instead of that of the actual restaurant.

I'm trying to decide whether or not you're ignorant or just being deliberately obtuse. Care to settle the controversy?

My understanding of the phone numbers is different than how you're saying it works.

The calls are forwarded so that Grubhub knows about them (and can get commission), but the customer that still talks to the actual restaurant.

Here they’re going beyond that and saying, “Bill’s Eatery. Phone number: 555-...”, which a reasonable person would think was the restaurant’s number, not a grubhub number.

GrubHub is taking over the relationship between the customer and the restaurant without either of those parties being aware of it. This is clearly a deceptive practice, and now GrubHub influences the customer's perception of the restaurant. Examples of conclusion(cause):

* That place is expensive (GrubHub sets the price which can be higher than the restaurant) * That place screwed up my order (GrubHub's game of telephone made an error) * That place is so slow (The now multi-step transaction slowed down the process)

>> They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X.

They're actually failing to say this, so the reasonable interpretation is "We ARE restaurant X" which is the fraudulent representation at the heart of the case here.

WHat if the delivery person that grubhub uses is useless and the regular delivery person that Restaurant X uses isn't.

YOu can end up getting poorly delivered cold food from GrubHub and make restaurant X look bad.

Restaurant X might end up having a load of disappointed customers, reduced custom and have no idea why. They dont know there is actually now a middle man they didn't agree to between them and their customer.

You’re attacking the first sale doctrine here though if you think about it!

First-sale doctrine doesn't allow you to impersonate other companies. Nobody is saying Grubhub can't resell meals, they just have to be clear it's them who are doing the selling.

> You’re attacking the first sale doctrine here though if you think about it!

I can sell a Mac but can't hold myself out as a representative of Apple.

We're talking about cooked food here though, not sure if it applies

Well I think first sale is IP so I didn’t mean it literally but I don’t get why anyone would be advocating for allowing manufacturers to be able to control what you can do with your property.

When it’s Apple suddenly everyone argues the opposite!

First off, food is different than technology. There are safety issues that are regulated differently. Can you think of any instances in the prepared food space that support your argument?

Second, I think the impersonation is the biggest issue. At a minimum, that sounds like trademark infringement; at maximum, that sounds fradulent.

IANAL and am just a dog on the internet, so grains of salt the size of Jupiter. But I don't think the comparison to non-prepared food industries are at all relevant.

> They're saying you'll get food from restaurant X.

That's not what they're saying. They're saying that you're contacting the restaurant, which you're not.

Because when people don't get exactly what they want, they blame the restaurant instead of the Grubhub employees who messed up. The restaurant loses business, grubhub makes a quick buck.

It's at the very least a trademark violation, this is exactly what trademarks were set up to prevent.

You’re allowed to use a trademark to factually describe a product. If I have legitimately bought an iPhone and I’m offering to resell it to you I can use the iPhone trademark to do that.

You're not, however, allowed to list your phone number as the number for the Apple Store and start taking orders on their behalf.

Because they fail to make clear that you are ordering from them, not the restaurant. With all that implies about responsibility about pricing, if there is an issue with the order, etc.