With Google already having been sued over antitrust issues this was kind of interesting I thought as it seems like the company Yelp is now also suing Google with claims that they are using their monopoly to dominate local search services a well. Usually when people want to find reviews for things like local restaurants people would go to a site like Yelp to leave their thoughts. However, you may have noticed that Google over the years has had options for things such as local business reviews on its search pages. When you search for a business I often see multiple options such as being able to leave reviews about the company. I guess with that said many people would not opt to go to a site like Yelp.
The company Yelp then brought up a point on how Google’s mission initially was to try and find people the right information and sites to visit whereas now they allege Google is suppressing other results to in a sense promote their own per se. They say quote “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.”
It makes you think as a business too, should you always be careful not to dip your toes into your partner’s industries as well? Like saying, if you are simply a food supplier then perhaps you shouldn’t start to make restaurants that compete with the people who are buying products from you for their own restaurants. Imagine there if they then raised the prices of products so that they could offer items for less at their own stores.