As a long-time user and advocate for fair competition in the digital marketplace, I can’t help but feel a sense of vindication seeing Yelp take Google to court over anticompetitive practices. Yelp, like many other small businesses, has had to struggle against Google’s monopolistic tendencies for far too long.
The success of the government’s antitrust case against Google allows Yelp, a rival online service, to now file a lawsuit against the tech giant. This service enables users to discover and rate local businesses.
Yesterday, Yelp filed a lawsuit against Google in a federal court in San Francisco, claiming that Google is exploiting its dominance in general search to steer users away from local search services and towards its own products instead. The lawsuit requests the court to issue an injunction preventing Google from continuing such anticompetitive practices, as well as compensation for any financial losses suffered.
As a dedicated follower, I’ve been eagerly keeping tabs on recent developments regarding the tech titan. A federal judge recently determined that this colossal entity breached antitrust regulations by constructing a protective barrier around its search monopoly through anti-competitive deals. Specifically, these underhanded practices involved exclusive partnerships with Apple and Samsung, where Google was set as the default search engine on their devices.
In summary, Judge Amit Mehta determined that Google holds about 89% of the overall search market, which essentially positions it as a primary access point or “gateway” to the internet. On average, approximately 9 billion searches transpire daily within this platform.
Yelp, a company Google tried to purchase in 2009, is thought to have delayed the deal and filed its own antitrust lawsuit later on. Over time, it has voiced concerns about supposedly anti-competitive behavior by Google to regulators and lawmakers, including the practice of taking content from competitors.
In a blog post, Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp, pointed out that Google seems to bypass the ranking system it applies to other websites. Essentially, when a user searches Google with local intentions, Google allegedly tinkers with its results to prioritize its own local search services over those of its competitors, even if these services may not be as high-quality compared to their rivals.
The legal action focuses on Google displaying its search results for local businesses higher than Yelp’s in search rankings. For instance, when users inquire about nearby eateries, they might see Google-sponsored businesses listed at the very top of the page, followed by a Google map showing other businesses. Businesses competing with these sponsored ones are displayed lower down on the page.
According to Yelp’s assertion, this tendency of favoring itself has caused an escalating number of searches with no user clicks beyond Google’s search results page. In other words, some users never navigate away from Google. However, even when a click does occur elsewhere, approximately 30% of the time it leads to another Google-owned platform, as stated in the complaint.
“Stoppelman stated that Google unfairly exploits its dominance in the general search market to keep users inside Google’s proprietary environment, thereby hindering them from visiting competing sites. This anticompetitive behavior drains traffic and advertising revenue from vertical search services such as Yelp, which offer consumers superior quality local business content.”
Most of Yelp’s income comes from selling local search ads, competing with Google and other similar service providers. These providers specialize in specific areas such as travel (Expedia), jobs (Glassdoor), real estate (Zillow), among others. Typically, consumers use Google as a general search portal to reach these specialized platforms.
Yelp faces accusations that it has broken Section Two of the Sherman Act by dominating the local search services and online advertising markets, and also breached California’s law against unfair competition.
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/763673164/content
Read More
- BODEN PREDICTION. BODEN cryptocurrency
- GHST PREDICTION. GHST cryptocurrency
- BETA PREDICTION. BETA cryptocurrency
- STRD PREDICTION. STRD cryptocurrency
- Mango Markets Exploiter Found Guilty Of Fraud And Manipulation
- GBP EUR PREDICTION
- MATIC PREDICTION. MATIC cryptocurrency
- LOOKS PREDICTION. LOOKS cryptocurrency
- BRN/USD
- TNSR PREDICTION. TNSR cryptocurrency
2024-08-29 02:24