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Yelp claims Google manipulates results to promote its own local search offerings and that it has degraded the quality of search results in the process.
After Google’s recent antitrust defeat in a US district court, the company is now facing a new lawsuit by review platform Yelp.
The online platform has accused Google of “putting its heavy thumb on the scale” and impacting competition in the search and online advertising markets. Yelp said Google has engaged in “anticompetitive conduct” to grow its market power and has degraded the quality of search results in the process.
Yelp referenced the recent court case in which Google was judged as a monopolist in the search market. A US district court found that one of Google’s key advantages over rivals is “default distribution” – having Google as the default search engine on various devices.
Yelp argues this dominance has given Google “tremendous power over adjacent markets” and claims the tech giant manipulates its results to “promote its own local search offerings above those of its rivals, regardless of the comparative poorer quality of its own properties”.
“Yelp has long fought to make Google’s local search experience more helpful for consumers and create a level playing field for competing vertical search services,” said company co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. “With our action, we aim to safeguard competition, protect consumer choice, recover damages and prevent Google from engaging in anticompetitive practices so that innovation may flourish.”
Yelp is seeking monetary damages from Google and an injunction “prohibiting Google from continuing to engage in the anticompetitive practices”. Google did not respond to a CNN request for comment on the case.
Google’s recent defeat in the US antitrust case is a major blow to the tech giant, which has faced scrutiny for years over its practices. It plans to appeal the recent decision and argued that its position as the world’s best search engine is what makes it attractive to customers.
Its parent company Alphabet is also facing a £13.6bn lawsuit brought forward by online publishers in the UK accusing the tech giant of anticompetitive behaviour in the adtech space.
The consequences for Google losing the antitrust case could be severe – US officials are reportedly considering splitting up Google and turning Android and Chrome into separate entities.
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