Yelp Uses Google’s Loss to File Antitrust Suit

Google’s troubles appear to have only just begun when a federal judge ruled that the company violated antitrust laws, paving the way for smaller companies to file unfair competition lawsuits. The first big one to emerge is the antitrust lawsuit that Yelp is filing against Google.

Google loses US antitrust case

Google parent company Alphabet found itself on the wrong side of a lawsuit filed in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Justice. The case was argued almost a year ago, and U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta announced his ruling earlier this month.

Mehta said Google acts like a monopoly to maintain its monopoly. With about 90 percent of the internet search market, that makes sense. The company pays billions to other tech companies to be the default search engine. Apple is one of those other companies, because it paid to keep Google as the default search engine in Safari.

Alphabet plans to appeal the decision, arguing that the case means it is the best search engine but should not make it easier to access. It also faces a lawsuit next month over its advertising business.

Yelp’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

Yelp wasted no time in filing its own antitrust lawsuit against Google. The business review site filed the lawsuit on August 28, 2024, alleging that Google had limited its potential reach after rejecting Alphabet’s offer to buy the review site.

Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a Yelp blog post: “By abandoning its stated mission of providing users with the best information, Google has illegally abused its monopoly on general search to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets — engaging in anticompetitive conduct that has lowered the quality of search results and demoted rivals in order to increase its own market power.”

Stoppelman believes that thanks to its multibillion-dollar deal with Apple, browsers, device makers and mobile carriers, Google can control what and where consumers see, which gives it a lot of power.

He also charged that when someone “conducts a Google search with local intent, Google manipulates the results to promote its own local search listings,” regardless of how great its own search listings are. This practice, likely AI Overview, keeps users on the search results page, leading to zero clicks from Google’s competitors.

The Yelp CEO added that advertisers are certainly losing out because of Google’s practices. Users staying on Google to read AI results allows them to charge advertisers a higher rate. He explained that Google has been increasing its search ad revenue year over year by 20 percent or more every year.

In closing, Stoppelman said Google shouldn’t be allowed to have a monopoly on general search results while curating its own local search content. He compared it to being a judge and a competitor in the same Olympic event. Are you concerned about privacy in your searches? Check out the best search engines for privacy.

Screenshot by Laura Tucker.