Yelp accuses Google of antitrust violations in fresh lawsuit

A hot potato: Yelp offers a searchable database of reviews for local businesses and restaurants. Although the San Francisco-based company operates in a different segment of the search market, it has consistently targeted Google for allegedly maintaining an illegal monopoly in general web search.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice officially declared Google an unlawful monopoly in internet search, accusing the company of exploiting its market dominance to maintain an edge over competing search services. Following this, Yelp is now suing Google, alleging that executives in Mountain View engaged in an anti-competitive scheme to dominate the local search market as well.

Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman claims that Google did everything it could to keep consumers within its own walled garden. According to Stoppelman, the world's largest information gatekeeper abandoned its original mission of delivering the best search results to users, instead abusing its monopoly in general search to heavily influence the vertical search business.

Yelp argues that Google's search result pages (SERP) were deliberately designed to reduce the visibility of vertical, specialized search engines, preventing visitors from leaving Google to browse content provided by third-party engines. This monopolistic approach to vertical search also harmed advertisers, as reduced competition in local search pushed more local advertisers to do business with Google.

"As a result, Google can extract higher fees from advertisers with little consequence," Stoppelman explained.

Over the last decade, Mountain View increased its search advertising revenue by 20 percent or more annually, all while continuing to grow its market share. Stoppelman told The New York Times that the recent DoJ verdict significantly influenced Yelp's decision to finally sue Google.

Yelp emphasized that Google's long history of unlawful conduct has been recognized globally, with the DoJ being the latest to issue an antitrust decision. In 2017, the European Commission fined Google $2.6 billion for prioritizing its own shopping recommendations over those of competitors. The EU is now investigating the company again under the Digital Markets Act.

"Google should not be both the monopoly provider of general search results and the self-preferencing curator of its own local search content," Stoppelman said. He compared this to acting as both a judge and a competitor in the same Olympic event.

Google's spokesperson, Peter Schottenfels, dismissed Yelp's claims as nothing new, noting that US authorities had previously rejected them. The company is also appealing the recent DoJ decision.