Getting a Cease and Desist from Waffle House
214 comments
·May 28, 2025frereubu
trbleclef
If McBroken.com can stay up...
AStonesThrow
Your website seems to be an aggregator of surface-level news blurbs from the mainstream media and some interviews with individual physicians. There are claims about "made-up" names and "correct scientific names". Putting health claims aside, there are no citations to any legislation that may have prevented a manufacturer from writing these names on a label. This website has a UK perspective, but I was trying to recall if any FDA or FTC regulations would prohibit the coining of new names for ingredients, particularly organisms. I think not.
In biological taxonomy, new names are coined all the time. Aliases for species are quite common. Common names for species are also common. We just learned that a "Buzzard" in the US is different than "Buzzards" in Europe/UK.
Pharmaceutical companies and scientists coin new "fake Latin-sounding" names all the time. So do astronomers! If there can be an asteroid named "25924 Douglasadams" then why can't Activia add a brand-name alias to something they use? Arguably, bacteria replicate so fast that Danone could have a new species if they cultivated it in a lab, rather than in animals.
Conversely, the food industry has taken names such as "milk" and "water", and expanded their definitions far beyond what common people recognize as those substances. Always receiving legal assent to sell fruit juice [nuts are fruits] with a mammalian name.
I've not had much experience with supplements, but more than a few I've purchased made proprietary blends of substances, and named that blend. Totally FDA-compliant.
I think your website got left up because it's fundamentally not a threat to any such practice in labelling.
I hereby address the candida albicans growing in my intestines, to announce that I dub thee candida hackernewsensis because sitting here has undoubtedly helped it grow.
frereubu
I know that all names are essentially "made up". It's the implicit nature of the "sciency" bit that annoys me. I don't believe Danone did a stroke of real science to come up with a bacteria that had any material difference from any other live yoghurt. The astronomers who discovered 25924 Douglasadams did do the science. Do you think Danone did any randomised controlled trials to measure its effectiveness over any other kind of live yoghurt? Of course not.
The idea of the site and its domain name is to try to get to the top of search engine rankings - which it has done successfully - so anyone who searches for it gets a clear answer, rather than just marketing fluff. I noticed that the Pages widget on the right was missing, which I've now reinstated, but here's the background to why I did it: https://whatisbifidusregularis.org/about-this-site/
myvoiceismypass
> Conversely, the food industry has taken names such as "milk" and "water", and expanded their definitions far beyond what common people recognize as those substances. Always receiving legal assent to sell fruit juice [nuts are fruits] with a mammalian name.
People don't seem to be complaining about that substance (not to be named) that usually goes with jelly on bread, and is not actually a dairy product.
This timeline is interesting: https://www.soyinfocenter.com/pdf/166/Milk.pdf
closewith
> Always receiving legal assent to sell fruit juice [nuts are fruits] with a mammalian name.
If you mean things like oat milk, it's unlawful in the EU (and I think still the UK) to label plant-based alternatives as milk or dairy under EU Regulation 1308/2013.
filoeleven
Which is absurd, since
> In English, the word "milk" has been used to refer to "milk-like plant juices" since 1200 CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_milk
It's like complaining that modern electric irons can't be called irons because the heat plate doesn't have iron in it.
krageon
Your perspective is incredibly US centric, so it is important to note that almost nothing which you note as normal or just happening is okay in the EU.
Havoc
>No live feed, no map, and certainly no counter of closed restaurants
I wouldn't be so sure about that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index#/media/File...
rapidaneurism
I think the op implies a feed, map, or counter that is relatively fresh. The image you link to is 11 years old. Is there a link to a map no older than say a few hours?
Havoc
I don't think it ever was public - either 11 years ago or now. My point was more there is a dashboard and FEMA does seem to have access
kevinsync
An old acquaintance of mine got a cease and desist from Jim Henson Company over his DJ moniker Mupperfucker. I know trademark holders are required to defend them, so I get it, but also...
https://gizmodo.com/heres-why-disney-is-the-proud-owner-of-m...
nice_scott
if the issue was just using the trademark and likeness, why not just remove those issues of contention, and keep the site up and running under a different domain? it wasn't mentioned that they had an issue with the data scraping.
lafond
Author here!
After receiving the C&D, the method with which I was getting the data was removed/patched (which I'm now noticing was not mentioned in the blog post...) I did ask them if there was any thing I could to keep it up and never received a response, and rather than playing a cat & mouse game of "now you don't have our branding, but you are scraping are data so here's another C&D" I just took it down :)
sdenton4
I believe scraping is generally ok - there's actual trademark law about trademarks, which is why you got a c+d about trademark usage, instead of a general 'stop what you're doing we don't like it' c+d.
A good point of comparison is steam db (and other similar sites), which uses Steam public info to triangulate market info that isn't immediately apparent.
jjmarr
The first sentence on SteamDB is:
> This third-party website gives you better insight into the Steam platform and everything in its database.
It clearly states that it's not affiliated with Steam and is a separate organization. There's also a further disclaimer in the footer of the page.
In contrast, the "Waffle House Index" had the Waffle House logo at the top of the page, with zero explanation or elaboration on who created the website.
lurkshark
Unfortunately Craigslist pushed a precedent that puts scraping into risky territory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist_Inc._v._3Taps_Inc.
Obviously this was a much different circumstance than a not-for-profit side project but still something to keep in mind.
jeron
this is a bummer - scraping is one thing but this was free marketing for them. If only they put their marketing department in front of their legal department (assuming they have a marketing department)
HWR_14
Don't blame the legal department. They are legally required to send a C&D in situations like that or they can lose their trademarks.
itishappy
No guarantee that such marketing will be good, however.
PenguinCoder
Absolutely not. Legal takes precedent over marketing or should.
xyst
Probably because of you, the legal dogs hired by Waffle House probably updated their ToS to include "unauthorized scraping"
bicx
As long as you didn’t actively agree to anything, you are not held to the Terms of Service for a public website. There are restrictions on what you can do with the data, mostly around direct competition with the source (I’m not a lawyer, so DYOR). The average scraping volume from Google and AI companies would make an indie site’s scraping volume look minuscule.
Check out this wild case to see how far you can go with scraping and remain legal. It’s surprising.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/26/meta-drops-lawsuit-against...
dylan604
If the WH legal dogs needed this as an the impetus for that change in 2020s, then they aren't very good legal dogs. ToS updates are pretty common, and if some one didn't like scraping, you'd think that unauthorized text would be added some time ago. It's not like scraping is a new thing. If they are savvy legal teams, this should pretty much be boiler plate language. Only neophyte legal teams would not expect scraping as something to expend ink.
edm0nd
its still okay to break websites ToS and AUP though.
AStonesThrow
[flagged]
recursive
What a cool and interesting collection of facts! Have you found any problems?
null
foobarchu
How would that work? The point of waffle house index is the association with waffle house. Without that, you have a unitless statistic unless you assume every visitor is already in the know.
Sephr
Reminds me of when I had the full version of Minecraft playable for free on my website and got a C&D over my use of the Minecraft trademark*. The application was legal (essentially hotlinking an applet) but it still caused its fair share of trouble.
I ended up taking it down anyways to appease script kiddies that were DDoSing my site, but not before setting my DNS to the DDoSer's C2 server, resulting in a temporary lull in the attack.
* I have no relation to Team Avolition. They were allegedly illegally rehosting Minecraft. I was just hotlinking resources from sources that were allowed by the Minecraft ToS.
Bengalilol
Great read! Keep on being you!
I am confused about FEMA: are they using some automated process or is it an abandoned index?
pikminguy
It's never been an official index.
This is conjecture but I'm pretty sure the idea of it even being an "index" is a stretch. More like people who work in disaster relief talking about their jobs informally. "I just got back from Town A. They had a tornado but it wasn't too bad. The Waffle House stayed open." "I'm heading to Town B. They've been having flooding so bad the Waffle House has been closed for 12 hours." That sort of thing.
Edit: Apparently FEMA contacts local businesses including Waffle Houses in the areas affected by a disaster to ask how they are doing. This makes sense as an added source of data to gauge the severity of an emergency. Still a stretch to call it the "Waffle House Index".
AStonesThrow
> Records show the index started out as a joke - and that some employees would prefer it stay that way
https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/sep/01/waffle-ho...
fkyoureadthedoc
Why take the whole site down instead of just removing their logo?
xyst
The mere threat of legal action for most Americans means $$$.
As a college student, probably broke as well. This person probably does not have the legal understanding or access to lawyers to guide him through it.
Much easier to take it down rather than deal with potential legal ramifications.
A half decent lawyer or even the "free" lawyer services at most universities probably would have advised just removing the "trademark" elements as you would.
JohnMakin
You ignore the cease and desist, they take you to court (still unlikely because they also incur cost they dont want). You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom, they will order you to take it down and then you do. They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here, which I would assume are close to zero.
Please don't fold immediately to this tired legal tactic.
dragonwriter
> You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom
That...depends on how much you care about the outcome.
> They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here, which I would assume are close to zero.
If they "take you to court" to force a takedown, they are already suing you (for an equitable remedy.) The marginal cost of adding a claim for damages and, on top of that, lawyers fees and costs (which, as you note, may well exceed the actual damages), is very close to $0 once they are already doing that. So, you may choose not to pay for a lawyer for yourself, but that won't stop you from paying for lawyers for the firm suing you.
pixl97
>You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom
You need money and free time to go to a courtroom.
>They're very unlikely to sue for damages because the cost of their lawyers far exceed whatever 'damages' are in place here,
This is a not a smart thing to do without legal console. There are plenty of very large, very wealthy companies that love to play SLAPP.
Your suggestion of FAFO isn't a great idea.
Spooky23
This is why companies come on strong like this.
The dude made in good humor, a website and pushed it on social media at a time that attracted a bunch of attention. It included graphics close enough to the trademark to be confusing to visitors, and did something that the company didn’t want done for reasonable reasons.
They incurred cost. People handled phone calls, their counsel billed for the response, the web agency had to modify the website. Waffle House sells greasy diner food, every aspect of dealing with this is zero value to them.
Rather than beat around the bush, they said “stop”. He did, and wrote a funny blog about it. But for every 10 situations like this one, there’s probably 1-2 where the counterparty is a prick and wastes everyone’s time.
otterley
IAAL (but not a practicing one, so I don't have skin in this game, and this is not legal advice). I also once lost $25k+ in a copyright litigation relating to music piracy before I became a lawyer. It was decidedly not fun.
You ignore a C&D at your peril. The rules are complicated and the fines and penalties for not following the rules are expensive. U.S. IP law is fiercely protective of patent rights, trademark rights, and copyright. It's not something you mess around with, and anyone who tries to defend himself without a lawyer is a god damned fool. The author of the blog post did the right thing by engaging and trying to work something out without coming across like "go pound sand, I do what I want."
Please don't walk around giving bad advice like this. I pray for the poor sap who listens to it.
0cf8612b2e1e
And if they do sue for damages?
Feeling invincible is nice, but even low probability events can lead to financial ruin if someone chooses to make an example of you.
DrillShopper
> You don't need a lawyer to go to a courtroom
You don't need one, but it is incredibly ill-advised and reckless to go into a case like this without a lawyer.
> They're very unlikely to sue for damages
Lawyer's fees are very often moved for in IP infringement cases, so even if they don't sue for damages, you're going to end up paying their lawyers.
> Please don't fold immediately to this tired legal tactic.
If you feel so confident about this, why not put up a replacement site and try this strategy when you get the inevitable C&D? Keep us informed. I'm interested to see how that plays out.
xyst
It works because the populace is tired, broke, and minimal time and effort to deal with it.
I don’t know many people that would purposefully drag themselves through the court system out of principle. Maybe those with enough free time on their hands and money to delegate/consult with lawyers.
You are probably right though. If a majority of people rejected the cease and desist orders and actually called their bluff about vague legal action. Then these legal tactics would become useless, and the recovery in whatever damages to their "trademark" would be far less than the cost to hire even junior legal teams at big firms.
Maybe you should test your principles. Recreate this persons website idea, wait for Waffle House corporate lackey to send C&D, then you show us how it’s done. Instead of doing your armchair "should have, would have, could have" analysis.
joshdavham
It’s for blog posts like this that I love HN! Thanks for sharing this
josefritzishere
This is a great story. The world needs more of this.
lafond
Appreciate the kind words :)
cloudpushers
This must make those trips to WH all the more special. What a fantastic story to tell anytime you're in one. Good on you for full-sending it.
Cease and desist letters can be scary. In my opinion, (which is not a legal one) theirs was pretty chill and straightforward.
In case you're curious, hafflewouse.com is available ;)
iambateman
There's a world where Waffle House acquires this from him for like $50k and it's an endearing story of corporate humanity.
But if I'm running the WH brand, I simply don't want to be the semi-official corporate sponsor of every major natural disaster.
loopdoend
I think you hit the nail on the head, waffle house index has too many negative connotations.
jrochkind1
Probably true, even though the point of it is a testament to how robust and reliable WH's are, they don't close if they have any way at all to stay open, is the original point of it. It's quite positive toward WH.
drjasonharrison
Does the company take care of it's employees? Are employees expected to travel to/from the workplace during horrible weather? If the conditions worsen is the company responsible for the employee's safety? What about customers?
dmoy
They send specific jump teams in there. More details:
https://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/hurricane-preparation-an...
Waffle House is like weirdly serious about disaster preparedness, for a restaurant chain.
jdonaldson
They probably already make a ton of money selling this information to hedge funds.
WorldMaker
It's a post facto index. It lags disaster by a few days and is far more interesting as a recovery statistic than a forecast. That's why it was important to certain types of FEMA operations, going in days or weeks later and trying to assess the hardest hit areas and triage them into a priority list. If Waffle House is serving a limited breakfast menu 24-hours a day in a neighborhood you can focus on sending the Red Cross-sponsored food tents to a different neighborhood.
Waffle House has been trying to distance themselves from it as a "Disaster Index" ever since the FEMA Director admitted to using it as an unofficial index. It's part of why FEMA increasingly refers to it as "unofficial" and has started to distance itself from discussions about it, too. I agree with the OP that part of it is definitely Waffle House wants to distance themselves from being "the brand of disasters". When it has been talked about as a "Recovery Index" (and without mentioning FEMA, because FEMA is the "brand of disasters") and the light has been shined to focus on why they've been among the fastest businesses in the country to recover from the worst problems, they've been happy to discuss and market that. It really is cool to see their flowcharts and checklists and graded levels of menus designed for all the scenarios they thought to design disaster recovery for (does the building have electric? does it have gas? when was the last supply truck in? when is the next supply truck expected? what are the road conditions?; it truly is fascinating).
null
tim333
archive https://web.archive.org/web/20250528155717/https://www.jack....
I think the site overloaded
I put up a (much less interesting and more nerdily annoyed) site that described how Dannon / Danone was using made-up sciency names for the bacteria in their yoghurt, and their legal department got in touch. I didn't back down: https://whatisbifidusregularis.org/legal-action-against-this... I think this example would have been fine if the Waffle House branding had been removed. Then just put a big disclaimer at the top, which also makes clear the silliness of the kinds of legal claims made by these companies.