Yelp files antitrust suit against Google over local search practices (Update: Yelp counter-response)

Update: August 29, 2024 (07:43 PM ET): Yelp is unsurprisingly not super happy with Google’s response to its lawsuit. We just got a counter-response from Yelp General Counsel Aaron Schur, who attempts to highlight how the company’s case differs from earlier actions pursued against Google:

Google’s statement is misleading. Yelp’s claims have never been pursued in court, let alone thrown out. In 2023, in the government’s antitrust case, Judge Mehta ruled there was a lack of evidence that Google’s degradation of specialized vertical providers, like Yelp, had an anticompetitive effect in general search — but Yelp is not a competitor in the general search market. Yelp’s complaint explains how Google harms competition in the local search and local search advertising markets, including through self-preferencing its own lower-quality offerings and exclusive billion-dollar deals with web browsers and device makers.