[Talk-us] Food delivery services: Move-fast-and-break-trust

[Jmapb]

Hi USA, just wanted to bring up an issue that I've run into recently 
while mapping businesses in NYC.

Whenever I'm walking through the city, I tend to whip out the phone and 
check for anything missing, incorrect, or incomplete. Often this means 
pausing in front of a restaurant and keying in contact info or opening 
hours. Sometimes I also take pictures with the intention of adding tags 
later.

There have always been a few who treat this sort of thing with suspicion 
-- especially taking pictures. But a couple times lately I've met with 
outright hostility from restaurant staff when taking down their data. 
One owner complained he was sick of "people from websites posting his 
information." Turns out the culprits were food delivery services, who 
had been offering delivery from his place without authorization. I plead 
my innocence, but this guy was in no mood to appreciate the differences 
between a crowdsourced map project and a move-fast-and-break-things 
delivery startup.

I discussed this with a friend of mine who owns a restaurant, and he 
recounted a similar story -- an angry customer calling the restaurant to 
complain about a late delivery. This restaurant doesn't do delivery, and 
has never partnered with any third parties for delivery. But a food 
delivery startup (I'm not naming names... actually I can't even keep 
them straight) apparently scouted their location, imported the menu 
(which changes often and is not posted on the web), and listed the 
restaurant as a delivery client -- all without even informing the 
restaurant, much less attempting to make any sort of agreement. They  
wouldn't even take down the listing when confronted -- figured they 
could just bully their way into a business relationship. And they were 
listing dishes that weren't even on the menu anymore! Though they took 
them all down quickly when the restaurant's lawyer called.

Don't know how common these sort of predatory tactics are outside NYC, 
but fair warning, there may be businesses out there who are no longer 
delighted at the thought of someone "from the internet" taking notice of 
their publicly-posted information.

Happy mapping, Jason