It sounds like Grubhub is indeed involved in some pretty shitty practices. No surprise there, I guess. Fake websites and cybersquatting have been around for a while, and is usually shot down eventually, but I can see how it's a pain in the ass to the smaller business that don't have the resources to fight it.
But I still don't see how GH listing places that they don't have contracts with hurts the restaurants. What it basically comes down to is someone placing an order through GH, GH in turn calling in an order to the restaurant, picking it up, and delivering it. If the restaurant doesn't have a deal with GH, they're sure as hell not going to pay them anything. An order was placed, they made it, and someone picked it up and paid for it. If some third party actually placed the order and will be picking up, not the end consumer, how does that hurt the restaurant? This all has apparently happened without the restaurant even being aware of it. Shady, but I don't see how the restaurant is hurt by this.
The customer pays more, and that difference is covering GH's costs (and their profit), but obviously food delivered to you is going to cost more than if you just went there and picked it up. There's a moral downside to the customer being completely unaware that GH isn't doing this above board, but if you're willing to pay $45 for for $16 worth of food, that's on you. Now, GH taking the order (and the money) and never delivering anything is definitely a problem. Pissed-off people calling the restaurant saying they never got their food, only to be told that the restaurant doesn't deliver, yeah that's an issue. GH has crossed the line from being a delivery service to blatant fraud at that point.
The issue with bogus calls and commission fees baffles me. Apparently GH is charging commission fees to the restaurants for calls that don't result in orders. The article doesn't really explain that, at least not in a way that I can grok. If the restaurant doesn't have an agreement with GH, why are they paying GH anything? If they do have a deal with GH to pay a "commission" per phone call, then they're stupid. Phone calls do not equal sales. Paying a commission per sale is a standard, time-honored business practice. The only deal that makes any sense would be to pay a fee per sale. As I said earlier, that's how I'd imagined the business model works. If that's not how it's implemented, and the restaurants have foolishly agreed to something else, yeah that sucks, but I wouldn't have signed the deal in the first place so yeah I'll call someone who did an idiot. Are every one of these restaurant staffed by idiots? You agreed to pay a fee per call? Pay the fee. It's what you agreed to. Again, pretty shitty on GH's part, but if that's how the contract is structured, and both parties agreed to it, I don't see the problem.