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Here I'd rather ask, why Lieferando is not sue-able? What they did is not just unethical, it's plain illegal.


IANAL, but they are probably violating the UWG (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_gegen_den_unlauteren_We...), law against unfair competition, and there are possibly also trade mark violations (one does not need to register a trade mark for it to be protected, if the restaurant has an established presence in the area, it might be enough, but that's up to a court to decide of course).


I do not use lieferando because of this, and I think what they're doing is highly immoral and wrong. But I don't see where this is plain illegal. Can you elaborate?


"And the people working for lieferando via Zeitarbeitsfirmen know this, and mention this in the call to pressure the restaurant owners to get their sales provision."

Extortion.


Isn’t this business model (as described above) literally the definition of racketeering?

I guess there might not be an equivalent in Germany.


It may constitute an infringement on common law trademark rules [0], but not sure what the German legislation around that is.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark


The part where they claim their phone number is the restaurant's borders on wire fraud, plus the extortive bit pointed out by other users.


Wire-fraud is a United States legal concept. It's probably not applicable to Germany (although Germany might have its own laws which cover this issue).


https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__263a.html

> Strafgesetzbuch (StGB)

> § 263 Betrug

> (1) Wer in der Absicht, sich oder einem Dritten einen rechtswidrigen Vermögensvorteil zu verschaffen, das Vermögen eines anderen dadurch beschädigt, daß er durch Vorspiegelung falscher oder durch Entstellung oder Unterdrückung wahrer Tatsachen einen Irrtum erregt oder unterhält, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu fünf Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.

> (2) Der Versuch ist strafbar.

> [...]

> (5) Mit Freiheitsstrafe von einem Jahr bis zu zehn Jahren, in minder schweren Fällen mit Freiheitsstrafe von sechs Monaten bis zu fünf Jahren wird bestraft, wer den Betrug als Mitglied einer Bande, die sich zur fortgesetzten Begehung von Straftaten nach den §§ 263 bis 264 oder 267 bis 269 verbunden hat, gewerbsmäßig begeht.

> § 263a Computerbetrug

> (1) Wer in der Absicht, sich oder einem Dritten einen rechtswidrigen Vermögensvorteil zu verschaffen, das Vermögen eines anderen dadurch beschädigt, daß er das Ergebnis eines Datenverarbeitungsvorgangs durch unrichtige Gestaltung des Programms, durch Verwendung unrichtiger oder unvollständiger Daten, durch unbefugte Verwendung von Daten oder sonst durch unbefugte Einwirkung auf den Ablauf beeinflußt, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu fünf Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe bestraft.

> [...]

My rough translations:

> Book of criminal law

> § 263 Fraud

> (1) Everyone who, with the intent to create an illegal estate gain for himself or a third party, diminishes the estate of another through the presentation of untrue facts, or the misrepresentation or suppression of true facts to create or sustain an error, shall be punished by incarceration up to 5 years or monetary penalty.

> (2) The attempt is punishable.

> [...]

> (5) With incarceration from one to ten years, in cases of minor severity from six months to five years, shall be punished whoever commits the fraud as the member of a gang, which has banded together to continuously commit crimes as in §263-264 and 267-269, in a business-like fashion.

> § 263a Computer Fraud

> (1) Everyone who, with the intent to create an illegal estate gain for himself or a third party, diminishes the estate of another by influencing the result of a data processing operation through incorrect design of the program, use of incorrect or incomplete data, through unauthorized use of data or through other unauthorized influence upon the operation, shall be punished by incarceration up to five years or monetary penalty.


lieferando has an identical logo to just-eat.co.uk . I already don't use the UK one: i often get their drivers coming to my house with other people's food so I don't trust them to get the basics of delivery right (they should capture the GPS where the successful handover takes place and learn from that for future orders).


Well that is simply because Lieferando is just the subsidiary of Just Eat that operates in German-speaking countries.


Justeat (and flipdish) does the same thing in Ireland with bespoke looking domain names for each restaurant. Just eat is strictly an ordering platform though, despite their branding on insulated bags the delivery is handled by someone else.




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