Lawsuit Claims Google Diverted Customers, Profits from Restaurants

pcmag.com:

A Florida restaurant group is suing Google for allegedly nabbing online food orders instead of directing them to the restaurant's own site.

As Ars Technica reports, the lawsuit was filed by Left Field Holdings LLC, which operates the Lime Fresh Mexican Grill franchise—Google uses "bait-and-switch" tactics to trick customers into placing takeout or pickup orders through "new, unauthorized, and deceptively branded web pages."

Starting in 2019, Google is accused of directing potential customers to its own site, "purposely designed […] to appear to the user to be offered, sponsored, and approved by the restaurant, when they are not," the claim said. "And while it would be easy for Google to label its services as 'Google's unauthorized buying service,' Google does not dare do so. It knows that its website is more likely to generate orders when cloaked in the imprimatur of the restaurant."

Once your burger, fries, and milkshake are bagged and tagged, Google routes the order to a delivery provider like DoorDash, Grubhub, or Postmates (who may or may not have a relationship with the restaurant), which subsequently charges the shop a hefty fee—as if the order originated from the food delivery platform.

Left Field Holdings is seeking class action status, saying that it believes there are "tens of thousands" of potential plaintiffs—the identities of which are "known to Google" and deserve monetary relief "up to three times actual damages."

Google, which disputed "the mischaracterizations of our product," told Ars Technica that the firm will defend itself against the lawsuit. "Our goal is to connect customers with restaurants they want to order food from and make it easier for them to do it through the 'Order Online' button," the