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Yelp files antitrust lawsuit against Google

  • CNN
  • August 28, 2024
New York

CNN

 — 

Yelp filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on Wednesday, alleging Google used its monopoly to dominate local search and advertising markets.

A federal judge's ruling that Google violated US antitrust law with its search business earlier in August paved the way for the lawsuit by Yelp, another major tech company that allows users to write reviews of local businesses. Yelp has long raised grievances with Google's search dominance.

"Our 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," Yelp said in an online blog post on Wednesday.

CNN has reached out to Google for comment.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco alleges that Google manipulates results to promote its own local search offerings when a customer searches for such results on Google. That allows Google to unfairly outperform its rivals, Yelp said.

"Rather than compete on the merits with companies like Yelp, Google has so effectively self-preferenced its offerings that an increasing volume of searches result in zero clicks, meaning users never leave Google's search results page," the statement said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.