[a_c_s]

Many of these platforms charge a fee for phone calls to the restaurant too.

Platforms like Seamless go so far as to set up websites for restaurants (that often have better SEO than the restaurant's original website), so the phone number listed routes through Seamless, helping to ensure they get their cut of any order.

[stickfigure]

Then it seems like a good legal remedy might involve labeling requirements for advertising by third-parties?

This cap... is not that.

[dumbfoundded]

If a restaurant doesn't comply, wouldn't this be fraudulent representation?

[gruez]

AFAIK last time it came up people mentioned that they were allowed to do that because of a clause in their EULA

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20321705

[lotsofpulp]

No one is forcing the restaurant to accept the fee, and if they do, then the restaurant should charge higher prices to offset it.

Otherwise google maps and Apple Maps is sitting right there not charging any fees for the phone number.

[pwinnski]

I think you misunderstand.

There are a number of restaurants listed on Yelp in my area for whom the phone number listed is answered by GrubHub. I refuse to deal with GrubHub, so I make an effort to search for a direct number, but it is often difficult to find.

I'm not sure how GrubHub is getting themselves set as the primary number for restaurants in Yelp, but it's happening.

[thrownblown]

maybe it has something to do with GH buying Eat24 from Yelp for stock? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

actually it was all cash nm https://qz.com/1045776/grubhubs-purchase-of-yelps-eat24-may-...

[lotsofpulp]

The solution to that is using google maps or Apple Maps or duck duck go or a phone book.

If people don’t understand that a middleman adds cost as an adult, then that is an education issue.

[throwaway_USD]

>If people don’t understand that a middleman adds cost as an adult, then that is an education issue.

I think the point is that middlemen are now using deceptive business practice to obscure the fact they are involved and in many ways cannibalizing direct business to the restaurants using "dark patterns". In the case of middlemen changing the phone number of the restaurant on services like Yelp/Google Maps without the consent of the restaurant should be fraud...its almost like I go to a bank and put my ATM machine in front of the bank ATM machines and charge customers withdraw fees...then claiming well I am a 3rd party of course I had fees (even disclosed it in order to proceed), while ignoring the totality of the circumstances.

[ceejayoz]

> The solution to that is using google maps or Apple Maps or duck duck go or a phone book.

You can try.

https://www.yelp-support.com/article/How-did-the-information...

> Yelp provides Apple with access to some of our business page information

[gerbal]

Yelp also provides DDG results.

[eropple]

"The solution is high-resistance individual actions to address a situation with no societal benefit created by a company with more money than you can even begin to visualize."

This is the sort of thing one says to either feel very, very clever about themselves or because they don't want things fixed. Which is it?

[lotsofpulp]

I don’t consider using a browser or google maps or Apple Maps to search name and phone number of a restaurant to be high resistance.

If people want to give their money to middlemen because they are too lazy to call or use a search website, that is their problem. We don’t need laws around every single idiotic behavior people do, and if they find value in paying an app maker an extra $10, so be it. I’ll continue to do the common sense thing and spending 30 seconds calling them because I can’t afford $10 to door dash for what is a useless service to me.

How much money they may or may not have is irrelevant.

[eropple]

Apple Maps returns results from Yelp, which sometimes have GrubHub's interposed phone numbers in them. So your very own solution doesn't work.

You are falling for the okeydoke.

Break these assholes' backs and we are all in a better place.