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Grubhub says its contract allowed it to create fake restaurant websites
Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney has responded to reports that his company creates fake websites for its restaurant partners, claiming that, according to its contract agreements, these businesses have signed away permission for Grubhub to engage in the marketing tactic on their behalf. According to a partial Grubhub contract obtained by the Los Angeles Times, a provision states that Grubhub "may create, maintain and operate a microsite ("MS") and obtain the URL for such MS on restaurant's behalf."
Grubhub provided The Verge with a similar snippet. Grubhub charges varying tiers of commission fees[pdf], the highest being "marketing commission" at 20-plus percent. The contract does not explicitly specify whether these microsites are considered "marketing" or what exactly these microsites would look like. Crucially, the contract does not specify whether Grubhub microsites would use proprietary restaurant photos, logos, or domain names that sound similar to / compete with the business's actual site. (Disclosure: my parents own a restaurant business that is listed on Grubhub / Seamless.)
In New Food Economy's report last Friday, restaurant owners say they "never gave [Grubhub] permission" to create these microsites and say the company is intercepting customer's direct orders in an effort to charge high commission fees. It is, however, possible that this fine print was overlooked upon contract agreement.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday July 04 2019, @03:50PM
Absolutely agree. Sadly the US court system is much more about playing a game and who has more $ and lawyers, than ethics, values, compassion. I feel like the last thing we need is more laws, but sadly the courts will only help the "little guy" if the laws are in place to do so.
I think it's completely unfair (and wrong) that someone or some corporation with lots of $ can hire lawyers and clever marketing people to write overwhelming contracts. Like OP quotes, who actually gives you time to read over contracts? I can't remember what it was, but some years ago I was supposed to sign something and wanted a copy of the contract to read and maybe get a lawyer to look at it and whoever it was would not let me take a copy with me.
In college one of my apartment leases was many pages of unreadable legalese- whole paragraphs of one run-on sentence. Every third word was esoteric legalese- had to look them up. "Writ of replevin"?? I took it to the campus lawyer who said many of the clauses would not hold up in court- a contract does not usurp law. But remember, she was a lawyer and understood that. How many college students would have the time, motivation, or $ to hire a lawyer to even understand the contract? Most will just give up their things or $ to the evil landlords. That's a good time to have pre-law friends.
Grubhub. Not an appealing name.
I think a simple solution would be that in court the little guy can state, and fairly easily prove, they don't have the understanding, nor ability to understand what they signed, and/or weren't given the opportunity to review it. Courts are based on the assumption that everyone has the $ to spend on lawyers. How about lawyers that make the same $/hour as average people? Or maybe you only pay the lawyer the same as you make per hour? Maybe make the "big guy" pay for a lawyer to advise the "little guy" before anyone signs the contract? I don't know, and certainly don't have answers, but I eagerly await soylenters' ideas.