Yelp Sues Google, Claiming Anticompetitive Conduct in Local Search

Google maintains a search market monopoly by self-preferencing products to the detriment of smaller competitors who offer superior local search results, Yelp said in an antitrust lawsuit filed against Google on Wednesday. Yelp filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. It claims Google has engaged in “numerous” anticompetitive practices, including stealing search data from Yelp, self-preferencing its own results and using algorithms to steer online traffic away from Yelp. In addition, the lawsuit claims that when Google tried to buy Yelp in 2009, it recognized the quality of Yelp results. When Yelp “rebuffed Google, Google began a years-long mission to stymie Yelp’s ability to reach consumers through Google’s dominant general search platform.” Google, in a statement said, Yelp’s claims are “meritless” and “not new.” Similar claims were “thrown out years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ’s case,” Google said, referring to Judge Amit Mehta’s recent decision (see 2408050052). “On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp’s meritless claims.” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman on Wednesday claimed Google “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, exempting itself from the qualitative ranking system it uses for other sites.”