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Businesses The Internet

Meal-Delivery Company GrubHub is Buying Thousands of Restaurant Web Addresses, Preventing Mom and Pop From Owning Their Slice of Internet (newfoodeconomy.org) 99

H. Claire Brown, reporting for The New Food Economy: GrubHub's commission fees had been inching upward over the years she'd [anecdote in the story] been working with the platform. There was the flat transaction fee, which hovered around 3 or 4 percent. Then there were marketing fees and costs for additional promotions. Shivane says she feels like the platform is increasingly pay to play: Spend more to promote your restaurant, and see your search rankings rise. Cut down on marketing spend, and watch your restaurant fall to the bottom of the page and lose sales.

"It's putting us in a financial hole. Last month, I paid $7,000 to GrubHub. That's my rent for the month," Shivane says. The New Food Economy viewed the company's invoice to Shivane's restaurant -- it was actually $8,000. We agreed to use only her first name and last initial in this story because she still uses the platform and fears the company could retaliate by dropping her restaurant to the bottom of its search rankings. Frustrated, Shivane started exploring other options. She says she thought about bulking up her restaurant's web presence and offering orders on her own site through a different service, one that offered a flat monthly rate and no commission fee.

There was just one problem: Someone already owned the web domain that matched her restaurant's name. She looked up the buyer. It was GrubHub. The New Food Economy has found that GrubHub owns more than 23,000 web domains. Its subsidiary, Seamless, owns thousands. We've published the full list here. Most of them appear to correlate with the names of real restaurants. The company's most recent purchase was in May of this year. Grubhub purchased three different domains containing versions of Shivane's restaurant's name -- in 2012, 2013, and 2014. "I never gave them permission to do that," she says.

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Meal-Delivery Company GrubHub is Buying Thousands of Restaurant Web Addresses, Preventing Mom and Pop From Owning Their Slice of

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:44PM (#58842290)

    To see if enables them to do that without your protest.

    If not, and probably anyway:

    2: Get a lawyer that is familiar with this kind of shit.

    Registrars can pull a registered domain name. Start filing complaints, and (etc) stuff that enables them to start the process *AFTER* you have checked your contract and spoken to a lawyer.

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:44PM (#58842294)

    Well, they got that name right.

    • Not only Grubby, but monopolistic and restraint of trade, etc.

      Wait until a lawyer decides to take Grubby on for anti-competitive tactics in trying to lock in customers. I can see a federal class action lawsuit coming on this.

  • by Dwedit ( 232252 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:48PM (#58842336) Homepage

    If the busniess trademarks their name, they can get the domain back from GrubHub.

    • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      This. It's going to be expensive to pursue it though as it's a case for federal courts. And I'd bet there are indemnities and arbitration clauses and anti-class action clauses she signed at some point while doing business with the company.
      • by DRJlaw ( 946416 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @04:21PM (#58842570)

        This. It's going to be expensive to pursue it though as it's a case for federal courts.

        UDRP cybersquatting complaints [icann.org] are low four figures and do not require an attorney.

        And I'd bet there are indemnities and arbitration clauses and anti-class action clauses she signed at some point while doing business with the company.

        Or you could, you know, read them [grubhub.com].

        "The following claims are excluded from this Arbitration Agreement: (a) claims in small claims court; (b) claims to enforce or to prevent the actual or threatened violation of a party's intellectual property rights; (c) claims for temporary relief in connection with an arbitrable controversy; and (d) claims that are non-arbitrable per the applicable federal statute."

        • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          Fair point on the arbitration if that is all the restaurants agree to, but ICANN is not a court. You can get the domains (spending thousands to do so) but no compensation. Furthermore:

          To invoke the policy, a trademark owner should either (a) file a complaint in a court of proper jurisdiction against the domain-name holder (or where appropriate an in-rem action concerning the domain name) or (b) in cases of abusive registration submit a complaint to an approved dispute-resolution service provider (see below for a list and links).

          so your choice in the US is to go to federal court or ... arbitration! The US “provider” is https://www.adrforum.com/ [adrforum.com]

          • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

            Fair point on the arbitration if that is all the restaurants agree to, but ICANN is not a court.

            And you complained about having to go to court.

            You can get the domains (spending thousands to do so) but no compensation.

            What are your losses for being denied access to a domain that you didn't register to begin with, exactly?

            so your choice in the US is to go to federal court or ... arbitration!

            You mean you might have to do something?! Oh, no!

            Now explain why optional arbitration is bad. As a bonus, explain how

            • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
              First explain to me how this is not either an expensive court case or arbitration if you want to pursue it, per my original post. You seem to be a little lost trying to win an argument I didn't make. You might want to go back and re-read this thread.
              • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                First explain to me how this is not either an expensive court case or arbitration if you want to pursue it, per my original post.

                Because it's an inexpensive UDRP complaint process ($1500) per my response to your post.

                Because you've labeled it as "arbitration" despite the fact that it's not conducted under general commercial arbitration rules, it's optional, and it's non-binding. How is it not arbitration? No... I don't need to prove a negative. You need to identify how the complaint process is "arbitrati

                • by EvilSS ( 557649 )
                  So you do finally admit it is arbitration or file a lawsuit. Thank you.
                  • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                    So you do finally admit it is arbitration or file a lawsuit. Thank you.

                    Bullshit. Quote where I admitted that. In your own words [slashdot.org] the solution was "a case for federal courts," but you "bet" that there was some arbitration clause. Then, when shown that the arbitration clause did not apply, you labeled the UDRP complaint process arbitration. But the UDRP complaint process is not arbitration [balough.com].

                    That is the argument that I am responding to and that you are running away from, now blatantly.

              • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                First explain to me how this is not either an expensive court case or arbitration if you want to pursue it, per my original post.

                UDRP is not Federal Arbitration [balough.com]. Demand fulfilled. Your turn.

    • by Obfuscant ( 592200 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:59PM (#58842436)
      Yes. Otherwise, there are a LOT of restaurants with the same or similar names. First come, first served in the domain name arena. It's not uncommon to find the wrong website when you search by company name these days, because other companies have similar names. Even if she had trademarked the name, I wonder if her claim would be invalidated if she hasn't gone after all the other restaurants with similar names for their violation of her trademark. Without a trademark, they don't need her permission to register a domain, and even then, only if the domain is involved in a similar business.

      I note that she didn't complain when GrubHub was paying the fees for the registrations so people could find her services and buy things from her, only when she wants to dump them.

      I'm also curious, just how many "Shivane" and same last initial customers does she think GrubHub has, who paid $8000 last month, that she's protecting anything by being firstname lastinitial in the story?

    • by gavron ( 1300111 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @04:15PM (#58842552)

      Assuming GrubHub is not using the domain name to point to her business,
      she can file a UDRP complaint. GrubHub is clearly on the face of it
      - registered a name she uses in commerce AFTER she was already using it
      - registered it in bad faith
      - drives away business from her own website or wherever she chooses to send it

      That's what the whole UDRP thing was designed for. Just ask Uzi Nissan.

      Ehud Gavron
      Tucson AZ US
      -

      • drives away business from her own website

        How does she have a website without a domain name? She wants to have one, but she's come late to the game and the names she likes are already taken. Can I boot someone off of a .nom or .me domain when they're using my name?

        Or, a closer analogy, can I get back the two domain names I registered many years ago and then let lapse, which are "in use" today only by domain name sellers who want to tell them back to me? The only reason they are registered today is because I had them registered and the squatters th

        • by gavron ( 1300111 )

          How does she have a website? Simple - she set one up. You don't even
          need a domain name... use your provider's subdomain name, your Amazon
          Web Services name, your Google Cloud name, etc. and point your domain
          name at the address. (CNAME or A DNS resource records.)

          If you register a name, and it lapses, and someone else registers it IN BAD
          FAITH to prevent you from using it, and THEY ARE USING IT then a UDRP
          complaint will result in your getting your domain name back.

          So the real question I alluded to in my orig

          • How does she have a website? Simple - she set one up. You don't even need a domain name... use your provider's subdomain name,

            So she has a domain name, belonging to her provider. There is something for Google to index so people can find her, just like they'd do if they Google to find her ... I think people looking for her site will be smart enough to know that a "doesn't resolve" site isn't hers, if they also have a link to a site that is.

            So the real question I alluded to in my original post... is whether GrubHub is doing something with the domain name... namely pointing it to GrubHub... or whether they just registered it to keep her from doing so.

            Appears to be some of each.

    • Who the hell goes to the trouble of trademarking their name but doesn't buy the domain? It's much more expensive and much less practically useful.

  • Thanks for the heads up!

  • I can smell a juicy class action coming out of this.

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:55PM (#58842410)

    Shivane says. ... We agreed to use only her first name and last initial in this story because she still uses the platform and fears the company could retaliate by dropping her restaurant to the bottom of its search rankings. Frustrated, Shivane started exploring other options. ...

    ... I think they can figure out who she is from that.

    Like documentaries that don't show somone's face -- to protect them -- but do show their office, car, hands, watch, clothes, tattoos, etc... and also don't obscure their voice -- dumb.

  • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @03:56PM (#58842414)

    GrubHub, Yelp, etc. are all parasitic scum that extort you for advertising fees, then retaliate by derankign you, posting false negative reviews, etc. when you don't constantly up your ad buy.

    NEVER get into bed with any of them.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I used to have a certain domain which I no longer needed, and permitted to lapse. Out of curiosity, I checked it a couple of days later - it'd already been snapped up. I don't know what the new site was about, but it was written in Chinese and opened popups. I imagine that some company has a scripted process for this - they monitor for domains that are abut to expire, snap them up the instant it happens, and then hope that the previous owner will realize they forgot to renew their registration and will be d

  • by BringsApples ( 3418089 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @04:04PM (#58842476)

    I've seen many examples of registrars charging ungodly amounts of money for names that they feel are going to benefit a business.

  • Buy any domain you can get your hands on that might be valuable, and use them to make profit. In a web first market and society it's important to claim your domain early and variations of the domain that you want to own, and if you don't, it's fair game.
    • Actually, if you are just buying to flip, there may be legal issues with it.
      https://www.nolo.com/legal-enc... [nolo.com]
      • I believe, after reading the link, for cybersquating to apply, you'd have to buy the domain in question with the intention of taking an active trademark away from the rightful owner of the trademark.

        If I went out and bought pizzapizza.ca, knowing Pizza Pizza is a canadian company, then I've intentionally cybersquated that domain, whereas if I buy orangepizza.ca and Orange Pizza is not a trademark at the time I buy the domain, then I haven't cybersquated, but I have acquired a domain fairly.

        Regardless, ev
    • That is not how it works. Cybersquatting is not legal.
      • (Just copying this from another response)

        I believe, after reading the link, for cybersquating to apply, you'd have to buy the domain in question with the intention of taking an active trademark away from the rightful owner of the trademark.

        If I went out and bought pizzapizza.ca, knowing Pizza Pizza is a canadian company, then I've intentionally cybersquated that domain, whereas if I buy orangepizza.ca and Orange Pizza is not a trademark at the time I buy the domain, then I haven't cybersquated, but I ha
        • No. If you buy the domain and try to sell it for a markup to a company or individual you had reason to know a priori would want it then that is cybersquatting. For example a person has owned and used a vanity site but the registration elapses before the re-register it. You know they will want it back so try to extort them by registering it and selling the registration at a markup. There is no trademark involved but you are still cybersquatting.
  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @04:22PM (#58842576)
    ""I never gave them permission to do that," she says."

    Maybe she should donate to some politicians and buy some regulations to protect her business endeavors. lol like government cares about the little people in the private economy.

    Just my 2 cents ;)
  • GrubHub registering thousands of domains related to restaurants is a pretty blatant case of domain squatting. The very fact that they make money delivering food from restaurants and own no actual restaurants themselves shows they're doing this only to prevent their customer pool from opening their own web site, possibly making GrubHub's business model irrelevant. They've opened themselves up for a serious class action, and I don't think they can't hide behind an EULA here. Not unless they have a contract
    • GrubHub registering thousands of domains related to restaurants is a pretty blatant case of domain squatting.

      Is it? Are they using the name so that customers can find the restaurant delivery service and web presence that the restaurant otherwise does not provide? If so, then they're increasing the business for them, and the use of the domain name seems quite reasonable.

      Now, if that is how they're using the names, then they should give them up if the business owner ends the relationship. We don't know if they would for "Shivane X." because she's still a GrubHub customer.

      shows they're doing this only to prevent their customer pool from opening their own web site,

      No, that's not the only possible reason.

      Not unless they have a contract with each and every restaurant they've stolen the domain from.

      I t

      • by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

        Are they using the name so that customers can find the restaurant delivery service and web presence that the restaurant otherwise does not provide? If so, then they're increasing the business for them, and the use of the domain name seems quite reasonable.

        Did you read the article? Some of the GrubHub domains were registered to compete with a restaurant website that already existed.

  • by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Friday June 28, 2019 @04:29PM (#58842616)

    It's 2019...if you print your first name, last initial, mention you have two American food (diners) restaurants in Brooklyn and Queens, and reveal you paid an invoice of $8000 to GrubHub it takes milliseconds to identify your customer records in their database.

    • by dills ( 102733 )

      You can only use my first name and first initial of my last name!

      Hmm, ok. What's your first name?

      Shivane.

      Yeah nobody will be able to figure out who you are.

  • Pass the charges through, in the form of a discount to customers who call your direct number. Don't make a big fuss about it. Just print the "secret" number and URL on paper menus handed out at your physical location. Eventually you may find that the secret is poorly kept and almost everybody is calling you directly. Then you can pluck the leaches off without worrying too much.

  • If they are costing more a month than they bring in drop them altogether. If they make you $1/mo that's $1 more than you had.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      What you are missing is an important concept from economics. GrubHub's behavior is what is known as "rent-seeking": attempting to make money without adding any value by placing an obstacle in the marketplace. (The classic example is charging boats a fee to use a waterway that was formerly free. More insidious modern examples go by the name of "regulatory capture".) This is harmful to everyone: the producers whose businesses have been captured, and the consumers who pay higher prices and have fewer choi

    • by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      Sure, if you oversimplify it... But, in reality it isn't that simple. The owners time isn't factored into costs directly. More orders means more work. More work means busier employees or more employees. That means more stress and/or more chance for workplace issues. There is also the physical limitations of the business. If you can't fit more people in the kitchen, you can't hire more people to cover the work load unless you move/expand. The list goes on.

      I get that a lot of that might be extreme examples.
  • I'm fed up with assholes like Grubhub and all the other worthless pieces of motherfucking crap like it.
  • Grubhub clients can always use an alternative TLD. There is no chance Grubhub can buy them all.

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