Restaurant sues Google for deceptive online ordering practices

A franchisee of a Mexican restaurant chain is suing Google seeking monetary and injunctive relief for sending customers to a landing page that is set up without the restaurant's permission and taking a cut of ordering fees.

Left Field Holdings, a franchisee of Lime Fresh Mexican restaurants, filed the proposed class-action suit in US District Court and asked other restaurants to join the suit.

According to the law firm Keller Lenkner, which filed the suit on behalf of Left Field Holdings, when customers search for a restaurant on Google, a Restaurant Information Box appears that displays an 'Order Online' button that will route them to a third party instead of directly to the restaurant, who have to pay a fee for these third-party orders.

Google takes a cut of those fees at the restaurant's expense.

Google denied the claim, saying instead that the "Order Online" feature was intended to "connect customers with restaurants they want to order food from," and that restaurants can "indicate whether they support online orders or prefer a specific provider, including their own ordering website."

Google spokesperson José Castañeda insisted that they do not receive any compensation for orders or integrations with this feature and disputes the mischaracterizations of our product and will defend ourselves vigorously.

But the plaintiff alleges that when Google changed its search tactics in 2019, the company never bothered to obtain permission from the restaurants to sell their products online and designed its websites to appear to the user to be offered, sponsored, and approved by the restaurant when they are not."

The lawsuit claims these actions infringe upon the restaurant's intellectual property rights by using their business names, logos, and trademarked images.

Jason Zweig, a partner at Keller Lenkner, stated that it is appalling that Google would take advantage of an industry going through a challenging time and, through deceptive and illegal practices, take a portion of their hard-earned profits for itself.