A federal judge ruled Tuesday that New York City’s COVID-19-era law that required food delivery companies to share customer data with restaurants is unconstitutional.
US District Judge Analisa Torres said the law violated the First Amendment by improperly regulating commercial speech. The judge's ruling was a legal victory for Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash – the three big food delivery companies that had filed the suit.
Under the law, delivery companies were required to provide customers' names, delivery addresses, contact information and order contents to restaurants. The city said the law was not enforced while the lawsuit was ongoing.
All three companies argued that the law was exploitative and threatened their customers' privacy and data security.
Their main issue revolved around their own business, claiming it harms them, as restaurants can use the data for marketing and “luring customers”.
The law was strongly supported by the New York City Hospitality Alliance, a nonprofit organization that represents restaurants and nightlife establishments. Andrew Rigi, the group's executive director, said Torres' decision “harmed small businesses and consumers” and strongly advocated for an appeal.
Torres determined that the city never showed enough interest in helping restaurants collect data from delivery companies, and said there were also less intrusive ways to help, such as giving customers the option to share their data or offering delivery companies a financial incentive to share their data.
DoorDash celebrated the ruling, saying it “rightly recognized that this law infringed on New Yorkers' fundamental First Amendment rights to protect their data.”
The law was adopted as one of various measures to help restaurants recover from losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns during the summer of 2021.
The city's Law Department is currently reviewing the decision, spokesman Nicholas Paolucci said.
with post wire
