Delivery Apps Keep Adding Restaurants Without Their Consent

Several delivery services, including Postmates, Seamless, Grubhub, and DoorDash, are offering food from restaurants without their explicit permission. "The delivery apps pull up restaurant menus listed online, from which customers make their selections, and couriers working for the apps place orders on their behalf," reports Eater. "The process essentially inserts third-party apps as middlemen into a service many restaurants say they want control over, or wish to opt out of entirely." From the report: Recently, in a move to compete with the Postmates and Doordash model, Grubhub and Seamless adopted a similar policy, adding "non-partnered" restaurants to their platform. Starting a few months ago in some cities like San Francisco, Grubhub added restaurants without their permission based on local demand -- i.e., searches -- for them. If Grubhub can demonstrate public interest in getting delivery from a particular restaurant, the plan goes, maybe restaurants will actually partner up. In a previous statement to Eater, a Grubhub spokesperson said the company has been adding non-partnered restaurants "so we will not be at a restaurant disadvantage compared to any other food delivery platform." "The non-partnered model is no doubt a bad experience for diners, drivers and restaurants," the spokesperson admitted. "But our peers have shown growth -- although not profits -- using the tactic, and we believe there is a benefit to having a larger restaurant network: from finding new diners and not giving diners any reason to go elsewhere."

According to a report by the Counter, Grubhub has registered more than 23,000 web domains for real restaurants, creating "shadow pages" that often compete with restaurants' real websites. If its shadow pages show up higher on Google search results than a restaurant's own site -- or are added by Google's listings themselves -- it's an advantage for Grubhub, since the delivery service charges higher fees to restaurants when it can claim it helped customers discover them. Grubhub argues that its contract with restaurants includes a provision reserving the right to purchase domain names to set up "microsites" on their behalf. In a similar maneuver, Grubhub also sets up new phone numbers for restaurants with whom they have contracts, displaying those numbers instead of the restaurant's direct lines on their websites and apps. Grubhub then forwards those calls to restaurants and charges fees for calls that lead to orders. Some restaurants, like Tiffin Indian Cuisine in Philadelphia, claim that Grubhub charges fees for every phone call, many of which don't result in orders, or are just calls to check in on existing orders. Tiffin's owner filed a class-action lawsuit in in Philadelphia federal court seeking $5 million in damages; Grubhub disputes the restaurant's claims.