Google Sued By YouTube Rival Over Search Rankings
January 11 2021 - 7:02PM
Dow Jones News
By Sam Schechner
Video-sharing site Rumble Inc. accused Google in a lawsuit of
abusing the power of its search engine and mobile operating system
to boost its YouTube video service over rivals, the latest
allegation of anticompetitive conduct against the Alphabet Inc.
unit.
Toronto-based Rumble, which has become popular among
conservative pundits, on Monday filed an antitrust suit in federal
court in California arguing that Google is "unfairly rigging its
search algorithms" to place YouTube above Rumble in its search
results. Rumble said Google's behavior cost it significant numbers
of viewers and advertising dollars.
The lawsuit also argues that Google's deals to pre-install a
YouTube app on mobile devices running Google's Android operating
system have unfairly deprived Rumble of viewers.
"Google, through its search engine, was able to wrongfully
divert massive traffic to YouTube, depriving Rumble of the
additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and revenue it
would have otherwise received," the lawsuit states.
"We will defend ourselves against these baseless claims," a
Google spokeswoman said.
Rumble's lawsuit cites the findings of a Wall Street Journal
investigation from July that found Google's search results gave a
preference to YouTube links over those from video rivals. In a
series of tests, the Journal found that search results in a large
majority of cases featured YouTube videos ahead of the same or very
similar versions of the videos available on competitor sites.
Rumble wasn't featured in the Journal testing, but the
video-sharing company says in its lawsuit that it conducted its own
similar tests using its videos. One exhibit in the lawsuit includes
screen shots of a Google search for "funny dogs on rumble" which
returns a list of videos that are entirely from YouTube.
In response to the Journal report, a Google spokeswoman said in
July that no preference is given to YouTube or any other video
provider in Google search, but declined to comment on the specific
examples. "Our systems use a number of signals from the web to
understand what results people find most relevant and helpful for a
given query," the spokeswoman said at the time.
The Rumble lawsuit comes as Google is facing several other
antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. Two sets of U.S. states have alleged
the company has abused the dominance of its search engine and its
advertising business. That came after the Justice Department sued
Google in October for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to
preserve its search monopoly. Google has said the suits lack
merit.
While elements of the U.S. cases, as well as antitrust decisions
in the European Union, have previously alleged that Google has used
its heft to help its smaller businesses, Monday's case is rare for
its focus on its promotion of YouTube, which Google purchased in
2006.
While Rumble has recently become popular with a
conservative-leaning audience -- videos from outlets like One
America News Network are among its most popular -- the company's
lawsuit focuses on Google's treatment of Rumble's core of
home-based viral content, such as cute cat and dog videos.
Rumble says one of its main business models is allowing content
creators to license their videos exclusively to Rumble, which then
syndicates them to other video services, including YouTube and
Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. Rumble then pays the posters a share of the
advertising revenue those videos garner.
Rumble says it must syndicate its videos to YouTube in order to
survive, because of the "monopoly Google has obtained for its
YouTube platform through its unlawful anti-competitive
conduct."
Since 2014, Rumble says, its videos syndicated on YouTube have
generated 9.3 billion views, and $4.3 million in revenue. Rumble
contends that most, if not all, of those 9.3 billion views would
have occurred on the Rumble website had Google not boosted YouTube
in search results. Those viewers would have watched and uploaded
other videos, too, all of which would have earned better ad rates
than on YouTube, Rumble contends.
Cumulatively, Rumble calculates that advertising on the
allegedly missing views over that period would have generated "well
in excess of $2 billion."
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 11, 2021 18:47 ET (23:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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