Google Antitrust Suit May Go Forward

TechForensics writes "KinderStart, whose page hits and AdSense revenue dropped sharply after changes by Google demoted its appearance in search results, brought suit claiming the search engine effectively suppressed its first amendment rights by lowering the site's visibility. While the Court rejected that argument out-of-hand, it appeared more amenable to KinderStart's argument that since it was a search page, Google's suppression of a rival search engine is prohibited by antitrust laws. The suit may go forward with the judge's commentary."

Comments

Kinderstart

[Bongo Bill]

What is KinderStart anyway? I searched for it, and it seems that there are plenty of results completely unrelated to the plaintiff. Why wouldn't KinderStart be suing them? I find it rather implausible that Google would suppress a search engine that does not pose a real threat, given that the results for the similar pages link on a search for "Google" prominently displays so many of their strongest competitors.

And never mind that Google, being a private enterprise, can present its results any way it wants (assuming that the claims are accurate), so that there's no grounds for a lawsuit. This whole incident smells frivolous.

Re:Kinderstart

[DavidTC]

Except that Kinderstart and Google are not in the same market. Kinderstart is, despite them trying to confuse the issue, a directory, not a search engine. What's more, they are a very focused directory. There is no way in hell they can even vaguely compete with Google.

And here's a fun link. Search Google for 'kids'. What's the topmost result? Yahoo!'s Web Guide for kids.

Oh, yeah, Google's really trying to corner that market. They not only don't even have a directory for children, but point people looking for one of those at a very big competitor to their actual business, general search.

That's like, the exact opposite of abusing your monopoly position. Someone comes into a hamburger place (google) and wants some ice cream (Kid friendly stuff), and you don't have any, you direct them to a directly competing hamburger place (yahoo) that has ice cream (Their kid directory), instead of just an ice cream place (kinderstart), in the hopes they'll come back to you for the hamburgers.