Yelp hits Google with antitrust lawsuit
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The Yelp app. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Yelp is suing Google, alleging in an antitrust lawsuit that the tech giant self-preferenced its own product to dominate local search and advertising markets against competitors.
Why it matters: The lawsuit by Yelp, which publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses, refers to a federal judge's ruling earlier this month that found Google violated U.S. antitrust rules to maintain a monopoly in the online search market.
Thought bubble, via Axios' Ashley Gold: The lawsuit is a culmination of Yelp's longtime complaints against Google, but it will be a challenge to prove concepts like quality of search results in court and will be especially hard in the context of how generative AI is changing search results.
Driving the news: The suit, which Google calls "meritless," alleges that Google has engaged in illegal monopoly leveraging in the local search services market in violation of U.S. antitrust law.
- Yelp claims Google limits consumer choice and degrades search results by self-preferencing its own local search product over rival providers.
- It accuses Google of anticompetitive conduct "to enhance its own bottom line and stifle competition" by driving traffic and revenue away from rivals, preventing competitors "from achieving scale, and increasing rivals' costs to gain market share for itself."
Zoom out: Yelp has for years lobbied federal and state government officials including in the Department of Justice with complaints of self-preferencing and seeking more oversight, but it had never sued its rival until Wednesday, when it filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco.
What they're saying: Yelp's general counsel Aaron Schur in an emailed statement Wednesday called Judge Amit Mehta's recent ruling that found Google illegally maintained its monopoly in general search "a watershed moment in antitrust law," providing "a strong foundation for Yelp's case against Google."
- Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's co-founder and CEO, wrote in a blog post Wednesday that the company's case "is about Google, the largest information gatekeeper in existence, putting its heavy thumb on the scale to stifle competition and keep consumers within its own walled garden."
The other side: "Yelp's claims are not new," said a Google spokesperson in a statement shared with outlets including Axios.
- "Similar claims were thrown out years ago by the FTC, and recently by the judge in the DOJ's case," the spokesperson added.
- "On the other aspects of the decision to which Yelp refers, we are appealing. Google will vigorously defend against Yelp's meritless claims."
Go deeper: End of the Google era
