Yelp has waded through legal floodgates opened by the Department of Justice's antitrust victory with a lawsuit of its own, alleging Google is monopolizing local search and advertising markets.

In a suit [PDF] filed yesterday in the Northern District of California, longtime Google opponent Yelp laid out its case for how the tech giant has abused its legally established status as a general search monopolist to become dominant in the local search space as well.

Focused on local business reviews, Yelp argues it's been pushed out of the market by Google promoting its own local review and advertising products. According to the review platform, this replacement has led to degraded search quality and worse results for users.

"When a consumer conducts a Google search with local intent, Google manipulates its results to promote its own local search offerings above those of its rivals," Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post announcing the suit. "This anti-competitive conduct siphons traffic and advertising revenue from vertical search services, like Yelp, that provide objectively higher quality local business content for consumers."

"Google knows that it won't win on the merits of quality in local search, and its past and current behavior confirms this," Stoppelman added.

Begun, the Google wars have

Yelp has been complaining about Google stifling local search for years, so it's hardly surprising a suit has finally been filed to that end. The timing isn't shocking either - Yelp even told us that its local search antitrust case against Google stems from the DoJ's victory earlier this month.

"Judge Amit Mehta's recent ruling in the government's antitrust case against Google, finding Google illegally maintained its monopoly in general search, is a watershed moment in antitrust law, and provides a strong foundation for Yelp's case against Google," Yelp general counsel Aaron Schur told The Register. "The harms caused by Google's self-preferencing are not unique to Yelp, and we look forward to telling our story in court."

Google, on the other hand, says Yelp is just trying to relitigate cases it's already lost. 

"Yelp's claims are not new," a Google spokesperson told The Register. "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."

What Google refers to is the August 2023 decision by a judge to narrow the scope of the DoJ's antitrust case by dismissing charges that Google broke the law by prioritizing its own specialized search results over those of companies like Yelp.

"Google's statement is misleading," Schur told us. "Yelp's claims have never been pursued in court, let alone thrown out."

The Yelp lawyer said Mehta tossed the state claims in the DoJ case because it wasn't clear Google's impact on specialized providers like Yelp had an effect on general search, which was at the heart of that case.

"Yelp's complaint provides evidence of how Google harms competition in the local search and local search advertising markets," Schur added.

Whether Google being declared a general search monopoly by a DC court will be enough to make Yelp's claims stick remains to be seen. No hearing date has been set in the case.

Yelp is demanding a jury trial, and wants Google to be forced to stop engaging in "anti-competitive practices designed to monopolize the markets for local search services and … advertising," as well as unspecified monetary damages and restitution, according to its complaint.

Along with its loss to the DoJ, Google has also had its illusions of not being a monopolist shattered by Epic Games as well. Amid rumors that the Justice Department is considering a breakup of Google in the wake of its antitrust loss, the search titan's future is anything but certain. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/29/google_antitrust_yelp/