Yelp Sues Google in Wake of Landmark Antitrust Ruling on Search

Online review site Yelp Inc. filed a lawsuit alleging that Google has illegal monopoly power in local search, in a sign of the legal headaches that may await the search giant following the US government’s landmark antitrust victory against the company.

Yelp claims the Alphabet Inc. unit has an unfair edge in the market for local search and associated advertising, both spaces in which the San Francisco-based company has strived to compete with its detailed reviews of restaurants, beauty parlors and other establishments. Yelp has spoken out about what it considers to be Google’s anticompetitive conduct for well over a decade. But the timing of Yelp’s lawsuit, filed just weeks after a Washington federal judge ruled that Google illegally monopolized the search market through exclusive deals, suggests that more companies may be emboldened to take action against the search leader in the coming months.