NYC law on sharing food delivery customers' data is unconstitutional, judge rules (updated)

Just Eat Takeaway.com NV

24/09/2024 22:28

(Adds details from decision)
    By Jonathan Stempel
       NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday
declared unconstitutional a New York City law requiring food
delivery companies to share customer data with restaurants,
saying the requirement violated the First Amendment.
    U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan ruled in
favor of DoorDash  DASH.N , Grubhub  TKWY.AS  and Uber Eats
 UBER.N , which said the law violated the privacy rights of
customers and threatened their data security.
    A spokesperson for the city's law department did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.
    The law required the delivery companies to provide
restaurants with diners' names, delivery addresses, email
addresses and phone numbers, as well as order contents.
    New York City adopted the law in the summer of 2021, one of
multiple measures to help its thousands of restaurants recover
from the COVID-19 pandemic.
    The city agreed that year not to enforce the law while the
delivery companies sued, even as it argued that the law helped
protect restaurants from the companies' "exploitive practices."
    But in a 31-page decision, Torres said the law improperly
regulated commercial speech.
    She said the city did not show it had a substantial interest
in ensuring that restaurants collect customer data from the
delivery companies, and that it had less intrusive means to
achieve that goal.
    These means included letting customers decide whether to
share data, offering financial incentives for the delivery
companies to share data, and subsidizing online ordering
platforms for individual restaurants, the judge said.

 (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Daniel
Wallis)
 ((jon.stempel@thomsonreuters.com; +1 646 223 6317; Reuters
Messaging: jon.stempel.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))