On 5/13/2019 12:35 PM, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
verifiable facts about a restaurant (or other feature) might not always be verifiable in the feature itself, but still be verifiable for everybody interested in it (elsewhere). If the URL is accessible for everybody it would satisfy the verifiability requirement, wouldn’t it?
Here's one story from a local restaurant: Fancy place, doesn't even do takeaway, much less delivery. One day the telephone starting ringing like crazy with takeaway orders. Eventually (the callers didn't initially make it clear) the restaurant owner discovers these are online orders from a delivery service that are being phoned in by the service's employees. He checks the service's website and there's his restaurant -- listed as new, featured on the neighborhood's page, and offering special discounts. The menu is there -- entirely wrong! Not just the prices, but the menu at this restaurant changes seasonally and the dishes were all from six months ago. He couldn't have filled the orders if he'd wanted to, because the ingredients were not in stock. This delivery service never contacted him for permission to be listed. It never warned him that he was about to be featured. And now he's angry, and the customers placing these orders are angry at the restaurant and giving it bad reviews. Explaining the situation to the low-level employees making the phone calls is not effective. He spends the rest of the day trying to contact someone in management at the delivery service to have the restaurant removed. They refuse. They're doing him a favor. Get with the times, etc. The fact that he's physically incapable of filling these orders doesn't sway them. He threatens legal action, they threaten back! So he hires a lawyer, who writes a cease-and-desist letter. The service removes him from the front page, but doesn't actually delete his listing until weeks later. If this all sounds like a racket, well yes, it is! But it's a legal grey area, so instead of being dismantled as a criminal enterprise, this delivery company is valued at millions of dollars. I have another friend who runs a restaurant, and she also reported being bullied by delivery services. Not as dramatic a story, but also listed without permission. So that's two data points, but these are the only two restaurateurs I know. So this is why I believe that the appearance of a restaurant in a delivery service's database should not be considered a verifiable property of the restaurant itself. If it's signed on the door or the menu, sure! But these services also engage in restaurantname.com domain squatting, hosting fake restaurant websites intended to drive delivery, so I wouldn't even trust a restaurant's website unless it links to more than one service. (I suppose if you successfully place an order and receive your food through a particular service, that's another form of verification. But be aware that the restaurant may have been coerced into this relationship.) Jason
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