Yelp has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of engaging in anti-competitive practices that have negatively impacted the former's business.
In a blog post, Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman claimed that Google has unlawfully leveraged its search engine monopoly to dominate both local search and local search advertising markets.
“… we aim to prevent Google from engaging in anticompetitive practices so that innovation may flourish,” Yelp's Stoppelman wrote in a blog.
Yelp claimed that when users perform local searches on Google, the company skews the results to favour its own local search features over those of competitors, even if its offerings are of lower quality.
Yelp alleged that Google exempted itself from the quality ranking system that applies to other websites.
Yelp further wrote, "When competitors can’t achieve scale due to Google’s self-preferencing, it harms advertisers too. Google’s conduct suppresses competition in the local search advertising market, ensuring that more local advertisers turn to Google."
It added, “As a result, Google can extract higher fees from advertisers with little consequence, according to studies. Notably, Google has increased its year-over-year search advertising revenue by 20% or more each year for the better part of the last decade, while still being able to increase its market share.”
In a statement given to The Verge, a Google spokesperson said, “Yelp’s claims are not new. Similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC and recently by the judge in the DOJ’s case. On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp’s meritless claims.”
The report noted that Yelp has a long history of raising antitrust concerns against Google. In 2020, a top executive testified about these issues before the Senate, and Yelp filed a complaint with the European Union regarding Google's alleged self-preferencing. The company has also supported government agencies in their efforts to pursue charges against Google.
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Furthermore, in 2017, the European Commission fined Google $2.6 billion for illegally favouring its own shopping recommendations over those of competitors. In March, the Commission launched a new investigation into Google's self-preferencing in search results under the Digital Markets Act. Additionally, in 2021, Turkey's competition authority determined that Google had unlawfully prioritised its own local search results.
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