[anaccountexists]

Google is the closest group to the consumer here, but the actual bad actors are DoorDash / GrubHub / etc. The delivery companies add the restaurants to their sites without permission, then Google indexes those pages and provides smart widgets for them.

Take away the delivery companies’ bad practices, you take away the Google experience the restaurants don’t like.

[rootusrootus]

If DoorDash and GrubHub are the bad actors, and what they're doing is well enough known that people on HN know about it, why can't Google adjust their algorithms accordingly? Hell, with two big companies like that they could just sanction them directly for subverting the algorithms.

I think it makes the most sense to hold Google responsible here since they are in the best position to solve the problem and they're not showing any inclination to do so.

[dontreact]

Funny how there is pushback on the YCombinator forum to an attempt to hold accountable a YCombinator company that actually has a direct hand in doing this to restaurants.

How would Google know which postings are fraudulent and which aren't? The vast majority of these postings are fine/legitimate/consented. Why does it have to be Google that spends time and energy going after the bad actors, and if they don't, they become one?

In other words, I really don't see how Google is in the best position to figure out which restaurants have been posted without the restaurant's consent. I think that would be the companies putting up the original post.

[HWR_14]

> How would Google know which postings are fraudulent and which aren't?

Oh, that's the best part. Google doesn't have to. DoorDash and GrubHub know. So Google can offer to derank all their listings and offerings or they can police them themselves.

"In two weeks, Google will be taking action against companies that regularly interject their own phone numbers in place of actual brick-and-mortar locations in an attempt to use SEO to siphon off sales. We look forward to our partners policing their listings to ensure all colistings are voluntary."

[dontreact]

Probably not a good idea for Google to go after other companies in this way given all the antitrust specter.

NYTimes headline

“Google abusing monopoly position to muscle out delivery startups”

[noasaservice]

https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#percei...

"Additionally, founders of YC companies see each other's usernames show up in orange, which — although not an explicit benefit — does allow fellow YC founders to immediately identify one another in discussions."

There it is, in a nutshell, how company owners are able to brigade as a collective group.

[david38]

Trivial. DoorDash has been caught doing this. Add this to TOS. If DoorDash persists, remove them from all searches until they prove they have fixed the issue and pay a penalty for bad behavior.

[mdoms]

> How would Google know which postings are fraudulent and which aren't?

There's a very very simple algorithm for this.

    Do I have a direct business relationship with this company?
     |
     |-> Yes -> take orders on their behalf
     |-> No  -> Do not take orders on their behalf

[dontreact]

I thought it was Grubhub/Doordash actually taking the orders, Google is just providing a link to their service.

[mdoms]

Google has a big blue button that says "make an order". Sounds like they're taking orders to me.

[kuang_eleven]

Honestly, if Doordash is a known bad actor (and it is), Google just just blacklist all results from them. That will hurt Doordash far more than it hurts Google or consumers.

[notreallyserio]

Same reason Google engineers don't delist sites like gitmemory and don't stop writing bots that automatically can people's accounts without recourse. They just don't care enough to leverage their vast power.

[judge2020]

No single Google employee can solve the "no recourse" part of accounts being removed when they trigger automated abuse systems, unless you expect them to be the only ones to maintain the support inbox for that recourse. Any change for the better has to be done by committee, legal, PR, etc. and unauthorized changes are surely going to be cause for termination and/or criminal proceedings against the rogue employee, depending on how much they changed things without permission.

[notreallyserio]

I'm not talking about rogue employees, I'm talking about the team that was tasked with creating the system. Google pays them millions because Google needs them, that gives engineers a lot of leverage.

I don't know the specifics, though -- maybe the proposed project was much much worse and this is what the engineers were able to negotiate. But I kinda doubt it.

[pronlover723]

Not excusing anyone but, AFAICT, DoorDash and GrubHub are extremely popular. Google is just giving consumers what they want. I have friends who eat > 50% of their meals via DoorDash. I live in an apartment complex and see tons of orders coming in. So, maybe it sucks for the restaurants and that should be fix but it seems hard to knock Google for doing what their metrics say people actually want. Their metrics probably say people want to order food and so they tried to provide that info. There no need for to apply "evil" motivations. Good intentions gets the same result.

[mitchdoogle]

I don't think people care that much whether it's DoorDash or GrubHub or Ubereats that's taking their order. Food is what's popular and getting it delivered is very convenient. But this is not just for delivery orders. Pickup orders are affected as well.

When DoorDash can place a link to their service on the Google result for a restaurant, it looks like it is a legitimate part of the restaurant's service. When they do this in a deceptive manner (without the restaurant's permission), it harms both customer and restaurant, because prices are often higher, there are extra service fees, and Doordash takes a big cut of the sale. And in the case of pickup orders, they get this big cut of the profit without adding a single bit of value to the transaction. And the customer may never even know who they were dealing with.

[Retric]

Just because someone somewhere hosts a website saying X doesn’t mean Google must assume their an authoritative source.

Google could temporarily delist those sites and instantly get them to stop.

[krnlpnc]

No, Google is far from helpless in detection of these types of issues. Business owners should be able to claim and manage the features which are enabled on their accounts, and nothing should be enabled by default beyond the basic contact info and possibly reviews.

[Jasper_]

No, Google is part of the problem here too. https://orderfood.google.com/