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Yelp (NYSE:YELP) has sued Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google for allegedly abusing its dominant position to control local search and associated advertising markets, thereby stifling competition.
The online review platform claimed that Google uses its monopoly power in general search to divert traffic away from local search competitors and its own search engine.
“Google’s scheme prevents businesses from reaching customers without paying Google and starves competitors of the traffic and revenues that would allow them to achieve scale and pose a competitive constraint on Google’s conduct,” Yelp (YELP) alleged.
“Google’s self-preferencing and gatekeeping has resulted in stagnant or diminished traffic to Yelp and other local search competitors despite objectively superior offerings, as confirmed by Google’s own quality indicators,” according to Yelp’s (YELP) complaint.
The lawsuit pointed to the U.S. government’s landmark antitrust win against Google after a judge ruled that it maintained its search monopoly through exclusive distribution agreements.
Yelp’s (YELP) legal challenge suggests that more companies may consider suing Google over its alleged monopolistic practices. Yelp mentioned other specialized platforms in the search ecosystem in its complaint, such as Expedia (EXPE), Glassdoor, and Zillow (Z).
“Yelp’s claims are not new,” a Google spokesperson said. “Similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ case. On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp’s meritless claims.”
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