Google sued by Yelp for dominating local search results

Yelp has filed an antitrust complaint against Google, alleging that the tech giant’s dominance in search engines allows it to engage in unfair business practices against its local search competitors.

Yelp, which offers reviews and information such as menus and hours of operation for businesses such as restaurants and cleaning services, has filed a lawsuit against Google in federal court in San Francisco.

“Abandoning its stated mission of providing the best information to users, Google has illegally abused its monopoly in general search to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets, engaging in anticompetitive conduct that degraded the quality of search results and demoted rivals to increase its market power,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said in a post on Yelp’s website.

In his post, Stoppelman claims that Google’s dominance in general search results and localized search, particularly on mobile devices, allows it to direct users to its own listings in ways that harm consumers, competitors and advertisers.

Google responded by saying that these claims “are not new.”

“Similar allegations were rejected years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ case. On the other aspects of the decision that Yelp refers to, we have appealed. Google will vigorously defend itself against Yelp’s baseless allegations,” Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels said.

Yelp disputed that claim, saying its allegations have never been heard in court. “Yelp’s complaint details how Google harms competition in the local search and local search advertising markets, including by favoring its own lower-quality offerings and entering into billion-dollar exclusive deals with web browsers and device manufacturers,” Yelp general counsel Aaron Schur said in an emailed statement.

One reason Yelp is suing is a federal judge’s ruling last August in a landmark monopoly case. In that decision, Google was found guilty of maintaining a monopoly by engaging in practices such as paying companies to make Google the default search engine on devices like smartphones. It’s not yet clear what the outcome of that ruling will be. It’s possible the government could force Google to break up its search business.

Over the past year, Google has been embroiled in class-action lawsuits and settlements over issues such as browser privacy, browser tracking and handling of user search data. Two years ago, the company lost an appeal over antitrust issues related to its Android mobile operating system in Europe.