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Why should they need to ask for permission?

Businesses operate in the public sphere; they have physical addresses and show up in business listings, so their locations and info aren't private. The use of the logo for commercial purposes could be a concern; I could see an argument perhaps saying that the businesses should have more control over their trademarked property in the sense that there could be confusion of whether they're working with Grubhub (they're certainly not endorsing Grubhub).

But apart from that, use of the business's information (including name) to describe what restaurants Grubhub will pick up from is nominative fair use. If I make a list of "businesses in my home town," McDonald's can't use trademark law to keep their name off my list. Same deal here.




Again, it’s misrepresentation: if they had a website and phone staff who made it very clear that they were unaffiliated with the listed business they would not be getting sued any more than a travel agent gets sued for buying airline tickets.




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