SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- Grubhub agreed to pay 25 million U.S. dollars to settle a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over unlawful practices, including misleading customers about delivery costs, deceiving drivers about potential earnings, and listing restaurants on its platform without their permission, the regulator said Tuesday.
The complaint claimed that Grubhub deceived diners about delivery costs and blocked access to their accounts. Under the proposed settlement, Grubhub is being required to stop these practices.
In addition, Grubhub had as many as 325,000 unaffiliated restaurants on its platform, which the FTC said led to significant harm to both the unaffiliated restaurants and customers.
"Our investigation found that Grubhub tricked its customers, deceived its drivers, and unfairly damaged the reputation and revenues of restaurants that did not partner with Grubhub -- all in order to drive scale and accelerate growth," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release.
Grubhub said in a statement that "while we categorically deny the allegations made by the FTC, many of which are wrong, misleading or no longer applicable to our business, we believe settling this matter is in the best interest of Grubhub and allows us to move forward."
