It would not surprise me if "we can use your brand for advertising" is explicitly mentioned in the GrubHub/DoorDash contracts. I think the overall problem is that restaurants don't have much leverage; their main option is to refuse to cooperate.

Now the (gradually becoming less common) practice of auto-creating order pages for restaurants that didn't agree to be a partner, I would agree should be totally illegal, or at least needs a very large disclaimer that the restaurant is not involved.

I would guess the DoorDash contract that the restaurant signed explicitly gives DoorDash permission to do this. They even probably think it's a service, run Google ads for mom & pops so they don't have to.

The recourse is exactly what the author of the article is considering; cancel the DoorDash contract.

these vertically integrated proprietary institutions need to be broken up. they cause competition in the wrong way, by forcing restaurants to sign up for all of them, and juggle multiple, competing, non-compatible infrastructures. its a different kind of anti-trust that creates an arms race, the necessity to invest in all the oligopoly's participants or be left behind by those that do. its like a weird hostage situation, where multiple people can hold you hostage simultanious.y

the online menu needs to be separate from the pos that receives the order, the request for dispatch to the delivery driver should be another component, and the online marketing another, allowing the restaurant and delivery driver to mix and match. at a minimum the advertising+menu+order placement should be broken up from the on site order processing+delivery. And with regard to the roads, there shouldnt be a bitesquad, uber eats, grubhub, postmates, and doordash delivery driver waiting in the lobby at the same time all driving to the same neighborhood. theres obviously better ways to load balance and distribute the tasks, than by which company submitted the order.