Categories: News

Viral Twitter thread reignites Grubhub furor

Over the weekend, a viral Twitter thread accused Grubhub of allowing an impersonator to pose as a well-known Thai restaurant in San Francisco and deliver food to customers. The truth, of course, was far more mundane: Grubhub and its subsidiary Seamless had listed restaurant Kin Khao on their platforms without the knowledge or buy-in of anyone who actually worked at the restaurant. And, since Kin Khao doesn’t offer delivery, chaos erupted when a customer tried to place an order through the platform. The San Francisco Chronicle has more, but here’s what you need to know: The company announced late last year that it would start adding restaurants to its platform without their consent. This scuffle is an all-too-predictable outcome of that business plan: Of course some restaurants aren’t going to be happy to receive surprise orders via Seamless. Also, as we reported over the summer, Grubhub has registered the domain names of thousands of restaurants and in some cases created websites on their behalf, often without their knowledge or permission. 

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