The dust hasn't even settled on a court decision finding that Google has an illegal monopoly on search and now Yelp is charging that Google is leveraging that monopoly to squeeze out Yelp.
Google search results routinely give preference to its reviews, edging out Yelp and others, the suit alleges. This is nothing new. Yelp has been complaining about it for years but held off from filing suit until Google lost the monopoly decision earlier this month.
“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 chief executive Jeremy Stoppelman said in a blog post Wednesday.
“Yelp’s claims are not new,” said Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels in a Washington Post report. “Google will vigorously defend against Yelp’s meritless claims.”
Monopoly decision doesn't help
While they're not directly linked, the monopoly decision doesn't do anything to firm up Google's position and, some legal experts say, could strengthen Yelp's attempt to win financial damages and possibly future restrictions on Google's activities.
In the suit, Yelp contends that it is a pioneer in online reviews and has been rating businesses long before Google got around to it. It also says its reviews are managed better and are preferred by consumers.
“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 on its website. “That’s the equivalent of being both the judge and a competitor in the same Olympic event.”
Yelp and Google have been rivals in the local search business for decades. In 2009, Google backed away from a deal to acquire Yelp, adding fuel to the rivalry.
The lawsuit gets to the heart of the Google-Yelp competition. Google somewhat loftily refers to itself as "organizing the world's information." Yelp says Google is more of a gatekeeper than an organizer and routinely downgrades competitors' information in favor of its own.
“Google took Yelp’s data, used it for its own competing property to siphon users away from Yelp, and profited,” the lawsuit alleges.
Decades of gripes, ratings
Online reviews have been around since the late 1990s. ConsumerAffairs was founded in 1998 as a news site for regulators and others in the consumer affairs field but switched to publishing reviews when angry consumers flooded its in-box with assorted gripes. Ripoffreport began its operations about the same time.
ConsumerAffairs has since evolved to emphasize national and large regional brands and has upgraded its news operation to cover a broad range of issues of interest to consumers.