“Our action aims to safeguard competition, protect consumer choice, seek damages and prevent Google from anti-competitive practices so that innovation can flourish,” Stoppelman said.
Yelp accuses Google of manipulating search results
Yelp’s CEO claims that when a consumer conducts a search on Google with local intent, Google manipulates the results to emphasize its own local search listings over those of competitors, regardless of the comparatively inferior quality of its own listings. In doing so, the company exempts itself from the qualitative rating system it uses for other sites.
“In other words, Google is abusing its monopoly position in general search to keep users in its own ecosystem and prevent them from moving to competing sites,” he added.
Yelp says consumers are the ultimate losers from Google’s allegedly anti-competitive behavior. “By preventing users from leaving Google, we are preventing other vertical search services from reaching customers, achieving scale, and creating helpful content,” Stoppelman wrote in the blog post. “This softening of the competitive environment means Google has fewer incentives to invest in high-quality content that would improve the consumer experience, and greater incentives to show less relevant but still monetizable results.”
How does Google react?
In a statement to The Verge, Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels said: “Yelp’s allegations are not new. Similar claims were dismissed years ago by the FTC and recently by the judge in the Justice Department case. We are appealing the other aspects of the decision that Yelp relies on. Google will vigorously defend Yelp’s baseless claims.”
This is not the first time Yelp has raised concerns about Google’s monopoly. In 2020, a senior Yelp executive appeared before the Senate to air the company’s grievances against Google. The company has also filed a formal complaint with the EU, accusing Google of unfairly favoring its own services in search results, a practice known as “self-favoring.” Yelp has also openly supported efforts by government agencies to file antitrust lawsuits against Google.
