"is there ANYWHERE in this story where anyone directly involved -- Edelman, the restaurant, whoever -- alleges or admits to wide scale deliberate ripping off of many people?"

Yeah it's in that first article you posted in the comments:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/12/10/who-ben-edelman-sheriff-the-chinese-food-internet/kaHyTBoMJjGkITQDV5uxaN/story.html

"He went on to claim that The Sichuan Garden in Brookline Village systematically overcharged customers an extra dollar on several menu items, because of what manager Ran Duan said was an out-of-date menu on the restaurant's website."

"This fall, according to Harvard Business School’s website, Edelman taught “The Online Economy: Strategy and Entrepreneurship.” The course syllabus lists “Online Restaurant Promotions” as a topic, referencing the “challenges of online marketing for services necessarily consumed offline.”

He also taught “Economics 2056a: Market Design and Electronic Marketplaces.”

It's wide scale, whether it's deliberate is unknown, I can't say it is any more than you can sya it is not, it's just unknown.

The point about archive.org is significant Sean, it's easily abused; here's how. Person A has bell.com for an art gallery for a guy named Bell, something he did before the phone company fumbled onto the Internet. After 8 years or so it hasn't worked out, they lose some but not all interest, and they turn the website off and just pays to keep the name until he can figure out how to do it again but one that works and is the next Twitter or whatever. He doesn't give it much thought other than it'll get done RSN.

Because of the way things look when parked somebody else offers to buy it for a fair market price, makes an offer which is accepted - domains change hands like vanity license plates in Britain - and now somebody else begins using it when all of a sudden they get a letter from WIPO a month before their demo launch of the next son of Twitter (Ish) to replace the parking page that's on the web now. Like the restaurant they were unwilling or unable to update that information on the web.

Sadly however, they lose the domain to the phone company who showed a snapshot of archive.org during the three week period when the domain was parked as proof of bad faith one of 3 precursors to a loss of a domain under the UDRP. And this is not a theoretical tactic, just stupid lawyer trick #298 to see if opposing counsel is awake and technically competent. It's happened - John Berryhill mentions this @1:00 in this video which you can see below but if you want to skip the intro click here: http://youtu.be/Rp3TPSaxN9w?t=48s

Any potential forensic accounting of the restaurants business could show a lessor than actual figure and the tax implications of this do not benefit the taxpayer.

"a dollar a dish even over months is not going to be large"

So then the question is, how long, and how many customers paid more for this confusion? We have laws against intentionally confusing consumers and this is the fundamental premise behind trademark laws - they are meant to protect consumers, not producers.

I'm not suggesting this was being done, or being done on purpose, if it were to be done, then in all fairness how do you differentiate when it's be done intentionally and when it's done because updating wesites is hard (?) and note that the local pho place again fixed that with the line "Eat in cost $1 more per dish" on the menu, which is uploadd to their website each time it changes - simple. Unambiguous.

It's one line on a menu. It's so hard to change that line? Consider the functional differences and alteration to the legal and accounting landscapes by it's absence - once scenario could see it could be used to skim off 15% off the top of all web based food orders near the location of Harvard Medical and Harvard legal. Say that's roughly $3000 a day at one location. (assuming an average of 4 items per order and 30 orders an hour for 8 hours - the local pho place near here does about that and they don't cut ice with a fucking band saw. In fact they don't have ice.) and I'm not sure where your threshold of "large" is Sean, but if the above numbers hold that's a million dollars a year per location. If it is indeed an honest mistake, it's a big one as evidenced by the fact if it is not a mistake is a pretty serious crime. That is, it's behavior so bad we actually have laws against it.

That this is a "mom and pop restaurant is "spin" - here's how the Boston Globe characterizes this "mom and pop business" when it's not under academic scrutiny:

Behind the Bar at Sichuan Garden II How Ran Duan has transformed Woburn into one of the most talked-about cocktail destinations in Massachusetts.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/blog/2014/06/03/bar-transformation-sichuan-garden-ii/

"Duan has now accumulated over 400 vintage coupes, tiki, and highball glasses, as well as a 1904 Tiffany & Co. register that he lovingly refers to as his “little baby.” That attention to detail though is what has drawn bigger and bigger crowds. Duan is enthralled with the concepts of seasonality and terroir. He hand cuts every 300-pound block of ice from Brookline Ice & Coal, first with a chainsaw, then a bandsaw for smaller cubes. His printed cocktail list might change bi-monthly, but individual ingredients are swapped out daily. For example, the house-made ginger beer is altered every time Duan brews a batch, depending on the ginger crop’s root of origin and its fluctuating levels of heat. When sour cherries became available in May, The Baldwin Bar switched its focus to the cobbler family of cocktails. And Duan admits he’s looking forward to peak kumquat season, when every one of his creations will be touched with the diminutive fruit’s mouth-puckering tartness."

This is only a "mom and pop business" if mom is one of the Fitzgeralds and pop is one of the Kennedy's.

Fo shizzle.

Not bad for a mom and pop business usually billed as artisans. When that branding is applied to attornies it becomes rather comical by the way, to wit: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-am-an-artisanal-attorney