China’s Top Court Targets Food Delivery Order Cheats
China’s Supreme People’s Court has released nine typical cases on unfair competition, including a landmark ruling against an electronics company that manufactured and sold a “physical cheat” device enabling food delivery riders to intercept orders at speeds impossible through manual operation. The court ordered the company to pay 3 million yuan (approximately $420,000) in compensation to the platform operators, according to Xinhua News.
The ‘Click Slider’ Device and Its Impact
The case centers on a device called the “点滑器” (Click Slider), which was sold through two online storefronts on an e-commerce platform along with tutorial videos instructing riders how to use it. The device connected to a food delivery crowdsourcing platform’s app and enabled riders to automatically refresh and grab orders without touching their phone screens, operating at speeds far exceeding manual capability. Total sales of the device reached several million yuan.
The three plaintiff companies—operators of a food delivery platform and a crowdsourcing platform—began receiving complaints from riders in 2024 about colleagues using external devices to unfairly seize orders.
Court Ruling: Substantial Obstruction of Platform Operations
The Guangzhou Huangpu District People’s Court in Guangdong Province ruled that the electronics company’s actions constituted unfair competition under China’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law. The court found that the device circumvented platform operating rules, directly disrupted the platform’s order dispatch logic, interfered with the normal operation of dispatch algorithms, and caused the order allocation mechanism to malfunction—constituting substantial obstruction of the platform’s normal business operations.
According to the China Daily, the ruling is part of a broader release of nine significant unfair competition cases spanning emerging sectors including artificial intelligence, new energy, and the platform economy. The cases address counterfeiting, trade secret misappropriation, commercial defamation, false advertising, and network unfair competition.
The court also noted that riders using the device could preferentially seize high-quality, high-income orders, breaking the industry ecology of fair competition and compensation based on labor. This behavior directly reduced order opportunities for compliant riders, unreasonably squeezed their labor income, and harmed the legitimate rights and professional enthusiasm of the vast majority of compliant riders.
Widespread Problem in the Gig Economy
The “physical cheat” phenomenon is not isolated. An investigative report by Blue Whale Finance published in November 2024 documented the widespread use of order-grabbing cheats in the food delivery industry, particularly in major cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, where “8 out of 10 crowdsourced riders use cheats.” The black market for these tools was estimated to involve sales exceeding 1 million yuan, with individual agents selling 200 or more units per month at approximately 200 yuan each.
Meituan, one of China’s largest food delivery platforms, publicly disclosed in August 2025 that it had sued the manufacturer of the “Click Slider” device and obtained a preliminary injunction ordering the company to immediately stop production, sales, and promotion of the product, as reported by IT Home. The platform reported that the number of riders banned for using external cheats decreased by 87.7% in the first seven months of 2025 compared to the same period the previous year.
Broader Regulatory Context
The SPC’s release of these typical cases comes amid intensified scrutiny of the platform economy. In January 2026, China’s State Council launched an investigation into cutthroat competition among food delivery platforms operated by Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me, aiming to rein in price wars that had eroded profits.
The ruling also follows the revision of China’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which took effect on October 15, 2025. The revised law expanded from 33 to 41 articles, adding provisions on platform obligations, data rights protection, and addressing “involution-style” competition.
Judge Li Dejun of the Guangzhou Huangpu District Court emphasized the broader stakes: “The healthy development of the food delivery industry cannot be separated from the soil of fair competition. Riders’ income should be linked to their own labor input, but order-grabbing cheats break this balance, harming the overall interests of the rider community and also causing delivery delays when riders grab orders beyond their service capacity, reducing consumer experience,” as reported by Yangcheng Evening News.
What’s Next
The SPC stated it will continue to strengthen anti-unfair competition trial work and improve competition adjudication rules to provide judicial guarantees for building a unified national market. As detailed by IT Home, the other typical cases released on September 9 address emerging challenges including AI-generated fabricated product reviews, livestream e-commerce tampering, and malicious editing of competitor review videos—signaling that Chinese courts are expanding their oversight of digital marketplace manipulation across multiple fronts.
For the food delivery industry, this ruling establishes a clear legal precedent: technology that disrupts fair competition in digital marketplaces will face significant financial consequences. Platform operators, riders, and technology developers alike now have clearer guidance on the boundaries of acceptable competitive behavior in China’s rapidly evolving platform economy.