A US appeals court has blocked New York City from forcing food delivery apps to share detailed customer information with restaurants. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city’s Customer Data Law violates the First Amendment when applied to marketplace services operated by DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats.
The law was designed to provide restaurants more information about customers who ordered through delivery platforms. Restaurants normally receive limited details, such as a customer’s first name, last initial, and the food they ordered.
Under the law, restaurants could have requested much more information. This included the customer’s full name, phone number, email address, delivery address, and order history. Customers were automatically treated as having agreed to the disclosure. If they did not want their information shared, they had to decline every time they placed an order.
The appeals court questioned this system. Judge Richard Wesley said customers should not have to repeat the same privacy decision every time they order food. The court also noted that the city could have created an opt-in system instead. Under such a system, customers would need to actively agree before their information is shared. Customers would actively consent to share their information in such a system.
The judges rejected the city’s argument that the information was simply normal business data. They said the information belonged to third-party customers who used the delivery platforms. It was not simply information about the platforms’ own products.
Judge Michael Park also wrote separately. He argued that the law mainly benefited restaurants by giving them valuable customer information. He said the law did not provide a strong enough reason to limit the companies’ First Amendment rights.
The law was introduced in 2021 by New York City Councilmember Keith Powers. It was part of efforts to help restaurants recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurant groups argued that delivery companies had too much control over customer relationships.
The delivery companies challenged the law soon after it was passed. They argued that it created serious privacy concerns. New York City later agreed to pause enforcement while the legal case continued.
The court’s latest decision confirms a lower court ruling from 2024. That ruling had already prevented the city from enforcing the law against the delivery platforms. The decision allows restaurants to eventually receive customer data from delivery platforms. Some services already allow restaurants to maintain a direct customer relationship.
For now, however, New York City cannot require DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats to hand over customers’ personal information under this law. The ruling gives customers an important privacy benefit, even though the case was brought by the delivery companies themselves.
