Yelp has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the tech giant has abused its dominance in general search to gain an unfair advantage in local search services. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco and seeks unspecified monetary damages and an order for Google to stop what Yelp claims is anticompetitive practices.
Yelp has been a critic of Google for a while. Yelp frequently complains about how the search giant treats other companies in its results. However, this is the first time Yelp has gone so far as to sue Google. This is likely thanks to a recent landmark ruling against Google in which a federal judge declared the company an illegal monopoly. This decision has made it possible for other companies to file similar lawsuits against Google.
Yelp argues that Google has used its power over online search to prioritize its own local search results, often placing them above Yelp’s results when people search for nearby businesses. According to Yelp, this has hurt the company’s ability to compete for traffic and revenue. Google, on the other hand, denies these allegations. Google argues that Yelp’s claims are not new and have been previously rejected by regulators. Google also argues that it has been unfairly targeted by Yelp, which has been lobbying for stricter antitrust enforcement against the tech giant for over 15 years.
The lawsuit, in which Google was called a monopolist, involved paying companies to make it the default search engine. Based on this, Yelp has strong grounds to question Google’s ethics. If Google is purposefully prioritizing itself, it may be a conflict of interest. Still, Yelp has to prove that’s the case. The lawsuit between Yelp and Google will likely be a lengthy legal battle, and we won’t see the end soon. It could also have significant implications for the tech industry, the future of antitrust enforcement, and search engine optimization (SEO) industry.
Source: Yelp
