Case Report: Yelp Challenges Google Over Its Search Engine Monopoly (Yelp Inc. v. Google LLC)
This newsletter unpacks Yelp’s contested lawsuit against Google’s search engine power and what it means for fair digital competition globally.
Yelp is taking on Google in a major court case that could change how we experience online search. The dispute focuses on how Google presents results and whether it gives itself an unfair advantage over platforms like Yelp. This newsletter breaks down what is happening, why it matters, and what it could mean for users, businesses, and the future of digital competition.
🏛️ Court: U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
🗓️ Judgment Date: 22 April 2025
🗂️ Case Number: 24-cv-06101-SVK
Unfair Competition and Potential Market Abuse: Yelp Inc. v. Google LLC
This case involved digital marketplace and competition:
Can a tech giant like Google use its power as the go-to general search engine to unfairly dominate and limit competition in other specialised search markets like local business searches?
Yelp, a company known for helping people find local restaurants, shops and services (often with those helpful star ratings ⭐), argues that Google has crossed the line by prioritising its own local search results over those from competitors like Yelp.
This practice is known as "self-preferencing"; imagine searching for a local café, and Google shows you results from its own products first, even if other sites may have better or more accurate information.
Yelp claims this behaviour is not just competitive, it is anticompetitive, that is, it goes beyond healthy business rivalry and starts hurting fair market access.
They stated that Google was using its dominance in general internet search (where almost everyone starts) as a lever to take over local search and local advertising, leaving other companies like Yelp struggling to be seen.
The legal issue made reference to Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which is meant to stop companies from using monopoly power to crush competition.
Yelp is arguing that Google is:
Monopolizing the local search services market,
Attempting to monopolize local search advertising,
Illegally tying its general search services to its local search products, and
Designing its services in a way that intentionally disadvantages competitors.
This case raises essential questions about digital fairness, market manipulation, and what it means for innovation and competition when one platform controls the gateway to the internet.
For everyday users, the outcome could impact how freely we access and compare online information, whether we realize it or not.
Did Google Abuse its Market Power?
Yelp is a company that helps people find and review local businesses like restaurants, dentists, gyms, and coffee shops. The platform provides detailed information, photos, and user-generated reviews.
Yelp earns money by offering advertising opportunities to local businesses that want to reach users who are actively looking for services in their area.
Google is the most widely used general search engine in the world 🌍. People use it every day to search for information on nearly every topic imaginable. When someone types a query into Google, the search engine presents a page of results. These results may include organic links, paid advertisements, and content from Google’s own services like Google Maps or Google News.
In the early years, Yelp and Google worked together. Yelp licensed its content to Google so that reviews and ratings could appear in Google search results. During that time, there was cooperation between the two companies.
By the mid-2000s, things began to change. Google started developing its own specialized search tools. This included Google Maps and Google Places. These services focused on local businesses, much like Yelp. Google began collecting its own data, including reviews and photos, and launched new features that overlapped with Yelp’s services.
In 2007, Google introduced a system called “universal search.” This feature allowed Google to blend results from its various services into a single page of search results.
Google’s own services would often appear at the top of the page. For example, a search for a local café might display a Google Maps box with business details before showing any other links. This box is known as the “OneBox.”
Yelp claimed that this arrangement made it harder for users to find Yelp content in Google searches. Instead, users were shown results from Google’s own services first, even when Yelp’s content may have been more detailed or useful.
Yelp also alleged that Google began taking content from Yelp without permission. This included reviews and other data that users had posted on Yelp. Yelp said that Google copied this content and used it in its own services, such as Google Places. When Yelp objected, it claimed Google threatened to remove Yelp completely from its search results if it did not allow the scraping to continue.
In 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began looking into Google’s practices.
The agency examined whether Google had misused its power in ways that hurt competition. An internal memo from FTC staff found that some of Google’s actions might harm other companies. However, the agency did not move forward with formal charges at that time.
In 2015, Yelp noticed a significant drop in traffic to its platform. Yelp believed this was due to changes in Google’s algorithms. These changes appeared to direct more users to Google’s own services instead of to Yelp and other competitors. That year marked the first time Yelp saw a decline in its year-over-year web traffic.
Yelp believed that Google’s growing control over search results made it very difficult for smaller or specialized platforms to compete. It pointed to the scale of Google’s operations and the amount of data Google had about users. By 2023, Google had earned 175 billion dollars from search-related advertising alone.
On 28 August 2024, Yelp filed a legal complaint in federal court.
It described a pattern of behaviour that it said began in the mid-2000s and continued through the 2010s and early 2020s. Yelp argued that this behaviour harmed not just businesses like Yelp but also consumers who may not see the full range of search results when looking for local information.
Google responded by asking the court to dismiss the claims. Both companies submitted documents, including reports from the FTC and records from past congressional hearings. The court reviewed these materials to help understand the context of the complaint.
🏛️ What Did the Court Decide?
The U.S. District Court issued its decision in the case between Yelp and Google on 22 April 2025. The judge reviewed the claims filed by Yelp and considered Google’s request to dismiss those claims early in the legal process.
After reviewing the documents and legal arguments, the court decided to grant in part and deny in part Google’s motion to dismiss.
This means that the judge agreed with some of Google’s requests to dismiss specific claims but allowed other parts of the case to continue.
The court ruled that some of Yelp’s claims could move forward, especially those related to events that allegedly occurred after 2020.
The court found that Yelp presented enough information to support further examination of Google’s actions in the local search and advertising markets.
However, one of Yelp’s claims was dismissed because it was based on events that took place too long ago.
The court determined that Yelp waited too long to bring that particular claim, and so it could not continue in the current lawsuit.
Yelp was also given the option to amend parts of its complaint. This means Yelp has the opportunity to submit a revised version of its legal arguments with more details, if it chooses to do so.
Overall, the case is not over. The next steps will involve further legal proceedings based on the claims that remain active. Both companies will have the chance to present more evidence as the case moves forward.
The Yelp Inc. v. Google LLC case shows how courts look at the behaviour of large tech companies when their actions affect smaller competitors and the overall structure of the market.
1. Monopoly power is not illegal by itself 🏢
A big takeaway from this case is that having a large share of a market is not automatically a violation of the law. In the United States, a company can legally grow large and become a leader in its industry.
What the law focuses on is how that company got there and what it does once it has that power.
Courts use a clear standard when deciding if a company has monopoly power.
They look at whether the company can control prices or prevent others from entering the market.
In this case, the court explained that a company generally needs to control around 65 percent or more of a market to be considered as having monopoly power. That power becomes a problem only if the company uses it in ways that harm competition and limit consumer choices.
2. Market definitions matter a lot 📊
Before deciding if a company has too much power, courts need to understand what market they are talking about. This is not always simple. For example, in this case, the court had to look at general search services, local search services, and local search advertising as separate markets.
Each of these markets involves different users, goals, and types of competition. By defining the market properly, courts can better assess whether one company is dominating unfairly. This matters because legal responsibility depends on how wide or narrow the market is. A company might be dominant in one area but face tough competition in another.
This principle teaches businesses that they need to think carefully about how their services are positioned. The way a market is described can have a direct impact on whether the law sees a company as dominant or simply competitive.
3. Timing is critical in antitrust cases ⏰
Courts place strict time limits on when a company can bring a case. This is called the statute of limitations. In general, an antitrust claim must be brought within four years from the time the harm occurred.
In this case, the court explained that the clock only starts when a company has both monopoly power and engages in conduct that harms competition. If a company acted aggressively before it gained monopoly power, those early actions might not count for legal purposes. The court also made it clear that exclusionary behaviour is not enough unless the company already has or is close to having monopoly power at the time of the behaviour.
This means that businesses must keep clear records and act promptly when they believe they are being harmed by unfair competition. Delay can make even valid claims impossible to pursue in court.
4. Courts take AI-generated content seriously, but with caution 📑
One unique feature of this case is that Yelp cited information from Google's own AI tool, Gemini, to support its claims about market share. Google responded by saying that AI-generated content may not be reliable enough to use in court.
The court acknowledged these concerns but said that under current rules, parties are allowed to rely on information from AI tools as long as they believe it is reasonable and they follow good practices. The court did not dismiss the claim just because the data came from AI.
5. Antitrust laws focus on protecting competition, not individual competitors 🧠
Another clear principle from this case is that the law is not meant to protect one company from losing out to another. Instead, the focus is on whether the overall competitive process is being harmed. If a company wins because it builds a better product or offers more value to users, that is not illegal.
The law only steps in when a company uses its position in one market to block others from succeeding in another market, especially if that action hurts consumers or prevents innovation. Courts are careful to separate healthy competition from unfair dominance.
This reminds us that the goal of antitrust law is to make sure users have choices, prices stay fair, and new companies have a chance to enter the market and grow.
6. Product design can raise legal issues 💻
Finally, the case touched on the idea that how a company designs its products can sometimes raise legal problems. For example, changes to a search engine that make it harder to reach competing sites could be seen as unfair under certain conditions.
Courts look at whether those design choices are made to improve the user experience or whether they are mainly meant to block out rivals. If it is the latter, then the company might face legal risks.
This teaches tech companies that every design decision should be backed by a clear and fair reason. If it has the effect of cutting off others from the market, it could attract legal attention.
Build your business in a way that does not depend entirely on one platform to reach users. If most of your traffic or revenue comes from just one search engine or app, you are vulnerable. Invest in other ways to reach people like direct visits, email lists, social media, Substack :) or partnerships. Spread your risk across different channels.
If you create or publish user-generated content on the web, make sure you can control how it is shared elsewhere. Some platforms may use your content to compete with you! Check your licensing terms and speak up if your data is copied without an agreement. Respect for your work begins with setting boundaries and protecting your intellectual property rights.