Yelp Accuses Google of Monopolistic Practices in New Lawsuit

Google is facing yet another legal battle over monopolistic tendencies, this time from online review platform Yelp.

The antitrust lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco alleges that the search giant has abused its monopoly power to dominate local search and advertising markets.?

According to the lawsuit, Yelp argues that Google unfairly boosts its own local business listings at the expense of rivals like Yelp. When users look for nearby or local businesses, Yelp says Google tweaks results to keep people on Google’s pages rather than allowing them to see other sites. This practice has reportedly hit Yelp hard, reducing its web traffic, ad income, and forcing higher operating costs.

In a blog post made on Wednesday, Yelp stated that Google is aware that it cannot win local search results on the basis of quality content and is “unwilling to compete fairly” by not pushing its own content through its “qualitative ranking algorithm.”?

The San Francisco-based company is seeking a court order that would force Google to stop these practices and award Yelp damages.

The timing of the lawsuit is strategic for Yelp, coming shortly after the US government’s recent antitrust victory against Google. In that case, a federal judge ruled that Google had illegally monopolized the search engine market through exclusive distribution agreements with smartphone makers and wireless carriers. Google said it would appeal the judgment in due time, on the premise that its success in search is a result of its superior search engine which attracts millions of internet users daily.??

Yelp, founded in 2004, has been a long-time competitor and has taken Google to court on different occasions. While it lost those cases against Google, it remains to be seen how the court will determine the outcome of this one.