Yelp sues Google for antitrust violations

Yelp alleges that Google has created or preserved its monopoly in local search services by preferencing its own inferior vertical over competitors’, which Yelp says harmed competition and reduced the quality of local search services. Yelp claims that the way Google directs users toward its own local search vertical from its general search engine results page should be considered illegal tying of separate products to keep rivals from reaching scale.

Consumers are the ultimate losers of Google’s allegedly anticompetitive behavior, Yelp says. “By keeping users from leaving Google, other vertical search services are prevented from reaching customers, achieving scale, and building helpful content,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post. “This softening of the competitive landscape translates to less incentive for Google to invest in quality content that would improve the consumer experience, and greater incentives to show less relevant but nevertheless monetizable results.”

It also hurts advertisers, according to Yelp, since suppressing competition for local search leads more local advertisers to Google. “As a result, Google can extract higher fees from advertisers with little consequence, according to studies,” Stoppelman wrote. “Notably, Google has increased its year-over-year search advertising revenue by 20% or more each year for the better part of the last decade, while still being able to increase its market share.”