The lawsuit behind this settlement, *City of Chicago v. DoorDash*, grew out of a common tension in the food-delivery boom: platforms want broad restaurant selection, while restaurants—especially independents—want control over their brand, menus, pricing, and customer experience. Chicago alleged that DoorDash (and its subsidiary marketplace Caviar) listed certain small local restaurants on their apps even when those restaurants had no contract with DoorDash, meaning the businesses were presented to customers as if they participated in the platform. For restaurants, unauthorized listings can create real-world headaches—incorrect menus, mismatched prices, delivery problems attributed to the restaurant, and customer complaints—without the restaurant receiving the benefits or having the ability to manage the listing. The case was filed to stop that alleged practice and to compensate impacted restaurants for being displayed and used in a commercial marketplace without consent. Under the settlement, eligible Chicago restaurants with nine or fewer locations that were listed without a contractual relationship between Aug. 27, 2019 and Nov. 14, 2025—and that do not currently have a DoorDash/Caviar contract—can receive an equal share of the fund up to $2,500 per restaurant by submitting an attestation by March 30, 2026 (using the Unique ID and PIN from the notice). Its significance is less about any single payout and more about setting expectations that platforms should obtain clear authorization before marketing a restaurant’s name and offerings, while giving small businesses a relatively low-burden way to participate (no receipts required, just an attestation tied to a notice). More broadly, this fits into a wave of disputes between delivery apps and restaurants over listings, commissions, menu accuracy, and who bears responsibility when orders go wrong—issues that became especially prominent during the pandemic-era surge in delivery demand. Many cities and states have also experimented with consumer-protection and platform-regulation approaches (such as disclosure rules, limits on delivery fees in certain periods, and enforcement actions under general deceptive practices or unfair competition laws), reflecting the industry’s shift from informal “scraped” listings toward more explicit contracting and verification. Similar controversies in other markets have pushed platforms to tighten onboarding and authorization processes, because when a restaurant’s identity is used to drive transactions, regulators increasingly treat it as more than a private business dispute and more like a marketplace integrity and consumer transparency problem