Yelp Sues Google Over Unfair Advantage In Local Search

Yelp has officially filed a lawsuit against Google for allegedly using its monopolistic powers to give Google an unfair advantage in local search and local search ads. "For years, Google has leveraged its monopoly in general search to pad its own bottom line at the expense of what’s best for consumers, innovation, and fair competition," Yelp's General Counsel, Aaron Schur said.

Aaron Shur told us:

Yelp’s antitrust lawsuit against Google addresses how Google abuses its illegal monopoly in general search to engage in anticompetitive conduct, including self-preferencing its own inferior local product, to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets. For years, Google has leveraged its monopoly in general search to pad its own bottom line at the expense of what’s best for consumers, innovation, and fair competition. By willfully engaging in exclusionary, anticompetitive conduct, Google has driven traffic and revenue away from competitors, made it harder for them to scale, and increased their costs, while degrading consumer choice, to grow its own market power.

Judge Amit Mehta’s recent ruling in the government’s antitrust case against Google, finding Google illegally maintained its monopoly in general search, is a watershed moment in antitrust law, and provides a strong foundation for Yelp’s case against Google. In addition to injunctive relief, Yelp seeks a remedy that ensures Google can no longer self-preference in local search. The harms caused by Google’s self-preferencing are not unique to Yelp, and we look forward to telling our story in court.

You can read the full document, a 66 page PDF, to go through the detailed lawsuit.

Jeremy Stoppelman, the founder of Yelp, wrote, "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. Abandoning its stated mission to deliver the best information to users, Google has illegally abused its monopoly in general search to dominate the local search and local search advertising markets—engaging in anticompetitive conduct that has degraded the quality of search results and demoted rivals to grow its market power."

As a reminder, in December 2009, Yelp entered unsuccessful negotiations to be acquired by Google. Google offered about $500 million, but the deal fell through after Yahoo offered $1 billion. Then both offers were later abandoned following a disagreement between Yelp's management and board of directors about the offers. Yelp and Google don't get along, they haven't really since this failed acquisition.

As an FYI, in 2013, we covered that Yelp dominated the Google results just like we did with Reddit in 2024 and Wikipedia before it.

The NY Times has good coverage of this lawsuit.

Here are some takes on X:

It's basically an attempt to free ride on Judge Mehta's finding that Google has market power in "general search"
+
Bolt on a "search neutrality" / anti-preferencing argument (which Mehta rejected)
+
Demand for a jury trial (ala Epic v. Google)https://t.co/gNos7tkV18

— Adam Kovacevich (@adamkovac) August 28, 2024

Wow. Complaint comes out and says "Yelp is highly dependent on Google for traffic" and "Google's self-preferencing harms Yelp."

This is Yelp's problem - the law doesn't protect it from competition from Google. pic.twitter.com/LVrJnSlWUz

— Adam Kovacevich (@adamkovac) August 28, 2024

Good for Yelp. It's hard to imagine a more appropriate & morally righteous plaintiff in head-to-head litigation against Google. @JeremyS has been a tip of the spear in the antimonopoly movement. Godspeed. 🫡https://t.co/cMJr8MbKPE

— Luther Lowe (@lutherlowe) August 28, 2024

Yelp's CEO:

Yelp is seeking a remedy that addresses Google’s anticompetitive misconduct, and protects consumer choice. Learn more: https://t.co/CaIt9FLU1x

— Jeremy Stoppelman (@jeremys) August 28, 2024

I should add, that when I posted about this on X, the response was not in favor of Yelp from search marketers and SEOs. Click through to that X post to see the responses.

Yelp even made this microsite for this lawsuit.

Forum discussion at X.