New York City’s plan to make food delivery apps hand over customer data to restaurants has now been struck down by a federal appeals court.
Quick Take
- The Second Circuit ruled that the customer data law violates the First Amendment.
- The court said the law forced delivery platforms to disclose information about customers, not just their own services.
- The panel rejected the city’s repeated opt-out design and said less burdensome options were available.
- The ruling affirms a lower court order that had already blocked enforcement of the law.
What the court struck down
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said New York City could not require DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats to share customers’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, delivery addresses, and order contents with restaurants on request. The panel held that the rule was unconstitutional as applied to the platforms’ marketplace products and affirmed the district court’s judgment.
The law was adopted to help restaurants build direct customer ties and recover business, but the court said that goal did not justify the disclosure scheme. Reuters reported that the panel saw “substantially less burdensome alternatives,” including an opt-in system, and found no reason for customers to repeat the same refusal with every order.
Why the judges said the law failed
The core legal fight was over compelled speech. The court said the city’s rule did not simply regulate a platform’s own service. Instead, it forced disclosure of third-party customer information, which kept the case outside the more lenient review that applies to some commercial disclosures. That distinction mattered because the law treated silence as consent unless a customer repeatedly opted out.
The opinion described a system where, whenever a restaurant asked, the platform had to deliver customer information unless the customer objected again and again. Reuters quoted Judge Richard Wesley saying the city gave no evidence for why customers had to repeat the same refusal with each order. The panel said the city had not shown a reasonable fit between its goals and the burden the law placed on speech.
What the ruling means for privacy fights
The decision matters beyond food delivery. It shows how privacy and transparency laws can run into First Amendment limits when they force companies to reveal personal data tied to third parties. That tension cuts across politics. Many people want more control over platform data, but many also see state and city rules as another way for government to overreach without proving the need.
Learn out. Second Circuit blocks NYC food delivery app data-sharing law https://t.co/xGaYtz5agR #tech #digital #privacy #crypto #ai
— Kohei Kurihara – Privacy for all together 🌍 (@kuriharan) August 6, 2026
The record available here also shows a key weakness for the city’s side: the public summaries do not include the full legislative file, the city’s evidence, or a detailed privacy study supporting the mandate. Even so, the court’s ruling is concrete and narrow. It does not erase all data-sharing rules. It says this version, with its order-by-order opt-out and forced disclosure of customer information, could not survive First Amendment review.
Sources:
reuters.com, law.com, cahill.com, wlf.org, news.bloomberglaw.com
