April 2, 2024
“If you are being run out of town, get in front of the crowd and make it look like a parade.”
Nearly 75 years after the colorful former mayor of Sausalito, Sally Stafford, offered up this amusing quip it has oddly enough resurfaced as the operational strategy of the shape-shifting Digital Restaurant Association (DRA), a creation of deposed former UBER CEO Travis Kalanick.
As we have been following, Kalanick and his DRA are pushing legislation in several states and municipalities that would force the sharing of consumer data of food delivery app users with DRA’s affiliated restaurants, in effect having government mandate company policies and financial operations, as well as nullify consumer control over their personal data.
Thankfully the DRA isn’t gaining traction with this highly dubious effort, facing recent defeats with a measure in Miami-Dade County, Florida that was abandoned by its sponsor, as well as the recently passed Florida bill that added more transparency on the workings of food delivery platforms.
Despite lobbying heavily to defeat the Florida bill, the DRA is now pretending to do a victory lap, posting a blog to their website to praise the legislation and even claim credit for its passage, stating, “the [DRA] is proud that SB676 includes provisions that we have advocated for on behalf of Florida consumers.”
Sadly, we’re not surprised. The DRA has consistently been misrepresenting itself and its efforts, on one hand saying they are attempting to achieve their goals without legislation or government regulation while they are simultaneously building digital platforms and lobbying bodies such as the Los Angeles City Council and Board of Supervisors for favorable legislation.
Meanwhile, the DRA crows about their efforts in more than two dozen jurisdictions though nearly all of the referenced localities engaged on this issue before the DRA was even formed. And while they present themselves to the public as “an independent coalition of restaurants,” their tax records indicate that “member” restaurants have virtually no voice or control of the organization’s activities pointing to a top-down organization with just a handful of people calling the shots.
Claiming victory in defeat, misrepresenting their lobbying efforts, and deluding the public regarding their power structure are the hallmarks of a group and its leaders who simply cannot be trusted or believed by the American public. This raises the obvious question; if the DRA can’t be trusted even to tell the truth about basic public facts, how can they possibly be trusted with consumers’ data?
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