A brand new chapter in Google’s antitrust troubles opened yesterday with Yelp submitting a lawsuit alleging that Google’s monopoly in search has allowed it to illegally dominate the native search and native search promoting markets.
Yelp will argue that Google harms shoppers by selling its personal inferior native search product over different native search suppliers, stifling competitors and growing prices for its rivals. Yelp is claiming damages in an quantity to be calculated, the damages to be treble beneath the 1914 Clayton Act.
The total criticism is here.
Why we care. Having simply been hit over the pinnacle with a significant loss within the DoJ’s antitrust case alleging an unlawful monopoly in search and textual content promoting, it appears Google could now be the goal of additional claims from particular person firms that may present hurt.
We’ll depart it to the attorneys to adjudicate whether or not the DoJ’s success will put wind within the sails of claims like Yelp’s. However Google would certainly relatively be doing issues apart from defend itself in court docket.
Dig deeper: Why Google lost: The DoJ’s case in 11 slides
“Wilful anticompetitive conduct.” Yelp issued the next assertion:
“Yelp’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Google addresses how Google abuses its unlawful monopoly typically search to interact in anticompetitive conduct, together with self-preferencing its personal inferior native product, to dominate the native search and native search promoting markets. For years, Google has leveraged its monopoly typically search to pad its personal backside line on the expense of what’s greatest for shoppers, innovation, and honest competitors. By willfully participating in exclusionary, anticompetitive conduct, Google has pushed visitors and income away from opponents, made it tougher for them to scale, and elevated their prices, whereas degrading client selection, to develop its personal market energy.
Choose Amit Mehta’s latest ruling within the authorities’s antitrust case in opposition to Google, discovering Google illegally maintained its monopoly typically search, is a watershed second in antitrust regulation, and offers a powerful basis for Yelp’s case in opposition to Google. Along with injunctive reduction, Yelp seeks a treatment that ensures Google can not self-preference in native search. The harms brought on by Google’s self-preferencing are usually not distinctive to Yelp, and we stay up for telling our story in court docket.”Aaron Schur, Yelp common counsel
