Yelp has filed an antitrust case against Google, alleging that Google engages in antitrust practices that see it controlling local search and advertising space. The case was initiated on Wednesday in federal court in Washington, DC, following a recent judgment that accused Google Search business of violating U. S antitrust laws to set the platform for Yelp’s lawsuit.
One site that has had issues with Google‘s dominance in the search market is Yelp, which allows users to rate businesses in their local communities. The complaint also asserts that since Yelp turned down Google’s buyout offer, this search giant has purposefully acquired any semblance of growth for Yelp.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Yelp said, ‘Our case is about Google, the most significant information gatekeeper in existence, using its considerable influence to cement its control over consumers and shut out competitors.
This lawsuit follows Google’s significant legal loss in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where Judge Amit Mehta described Google as a ‘‘monopolist. ’’ The decision will likely alter how information is consumed on the Internet. Yelp’s lawsuit is one of the most notable developments after the verdict.
Google’s official representative quickly judged the lawsuit, noticing that all the information belonged to an outdated Yelp. Yelp’s claims are not new anyway, as similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC and recently by the judge in the DOJ’s case. On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing, said a spokesperson of Google. On meritless claims, Google will vigorously defend against them.
The suits filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California allege that Google alters its search results to favor its local search services each time users search for local business information.
Yelp enables Google to compete squarely with other rivals by confining users within Google’s environment. In addition to mapping services, hours of operation, and other data, users get reviews from Yelp without navigating to the Yelp site.
Yelp is not alone in its fight against Google’s practices, though. Other companies have also come out to complain about Google’s tactics. The complaint also brings to light other specialty search companies, such as Expedia, Glassdoor, and Zillow, competing with Google but on the wrong side. Yelp said Google is abusing the latter by steering people to its other services while disallowing them to go to other sites.
Yelp also argues that reviews on its site are of higher quality than those on Google. According to the FTC report, the complaint states that 32 % of Google reviews have no text, while Yelp demands that the evaluation text be descriptive. Nowhere in the world has Google been able to contribute to a high-quality local search service that could be in sync with Yelp and other synchronous search engines—the latter was a full-on revelation, according to Yelp’s 66-page complaint.
This complaint also raises an issue with Google’s past, which has seen the company spend billions of dollars locking exclusive deals that assure its dominance as the world’s default search engine. In his previous ruling, Judge James E. Mehta deemed such ‘exclusives,’ especially with Apple and other players in the mobile market, anti-competitive. Mehta also pointed out that due to its monopoly, Google can set high fees for search advertising.
Though the court did not agree that Google has a monopoly in search ads, Yelp, which also sells local search advertising, said that Google’s dominance puts local advertisers at the company’s mercy, making it set high fees.
According to Yelp, in the lawsuit filed with it, Google has negatively impacted its business through Decreased traffic, lower advertising revenues, and higher operational costs. Yelp is asking for monetary damages and relief as an injunction so that Google can halt the practices detailed in the complaint.
