Yelp sues Google over local search dominance
Yelp, the local recommendation company, has has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Googlealleging that the company’s dominant position in search allows it to engage in unfair trade practices against competitors that use local search.
Yelp provides reviews and information like menus and hours of operation for businesses like restaurants and cleaning services. The company has filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court in San Francisco.
In a place on her websiteYelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said: “Google has abandoned its mission to provide users with the best information and abused its monopoly on general search to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets. In doing so, the company has engaged in anticompetitive behavior that has degraded the quality of search results and degraded rivals to increase its market power.”
Stoppelman wrote in the post that Google’s dominant position not only in general search results but also in localized search, particularly on mobile devices, allows the company to direct users to its own listings in ways that are harmful to consumers, competitors and advertisers.
“Yelp’s claims are not new,” said Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels. “Similar claims were made by the FTCand recently by the right in the DOJ case. As to the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we will appeal. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp’s baseless claims.”
One reason for the timing of Yelp’s lawsuit is a federal judge’s August ruling in a landmark monopoly case. The ruling found that Google had maintained a monopoly by engaging in practices such as paying companies to make Google the default search engine on devices like smartphones. It’s still unclear what the outcome of that ruling will be — it’s possible the government could require Google is going to split up its search operations.
Google has been embroiled in class-action lawsuits and settlements over the past year over issues including browser privacy, browser tracking and how it handles user search data. Two years ago, the company lost an appeal over antitrust issues related to its Android mobile operating system in Europe.
