Yelp files lawsuit against Google over alleged anti-competitive practices

Yelp, a platform for online reviews, has initiated legal action against Google, alleging that the tech company has engaged in practices that hinder competition, harming Yelp’s business.

In a blog post, Yelp's co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman accused Google of unlawfully leveraging its dominance in search engines to dominate the local search and advertising markets. “Our lawsuit seeks to protect competition, defend consumer choice, seek damages, and stop Google from engaging in anti-competitive behavior to allow innovation to thrive,” Stoppelman stated.

Yelp claimed that when users conduct local searches on Google, the search engine manipulates the results to prioritize its own local search services over those of rivals, even if Google's options are inferior. This approach allows Google to circumvent the ranking standards it enforces on other sites.

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