Warwick didn’t know about the site before I reached him, but said he didn’t see a problem with it. He thought the extra web presence might help drive traffic to his business. “This might be their way of attempting to originate business at a higher commission level,” he said.

Then again, Warwick’s business model is completely different from Shivane’s. He doesn’t employ his own delivery drivers, so GrubHub would have handled that part of the equation, which might have made the business arrangement more worthwhile to him. He’s also in Columbus, where commercial rent is a little lower than in notoriously high-priced New York City. He didn’t seem worried that GrubHub’s shadow page might trick his customers or lead to unfair commissions for the platform. Of course, he’s also never worked with GrubHub.

Mitchell thinks it’s time for lawmakers to step in and regulate platforms like GrubHub. “Policymakers have been incredibly slow to recognize that the web, which was supposed to be this wide open space where everyone can compete on this equal playing field— it has become an arena where a few monopoly-minded corporations are increasingly controlling access.”

As for Shivane, she says she hopes to start educating customers about what she sees as GrubHub’s predatory business practices. She wants people to start calling her direct line again, like they used to. And she thinks her customers will be happy to help her as soon as they learn more about what’s going on. She adds, “I don’t think a lot of people realize how shady GrubHub is.”

Update 6/30/2018: We have changed the language from GrubHub “owns” to GrubHub “has purchased” these domains. Some registrations may have been allowed to expire.