Federal antitrust lawsuit filed against Google

Federal antitrust lawsuit filed against Google

It claimed unlawful business practices under the California State Law

A federal class-action antitrust complaint has been filed against Google for allegedly leveraging its dominance in the GPS navigation mapping market.

Google is accused of improperly and unlawfully connecting services including Google Maps and Waze, which provides satellite navigation software. It is alleged that it locks app developers into the 'Google ecosystem', subjecting them to egregious and anti-competitive price hikes.

Plaintiffs Dream Big Media and Getify Solutions jointly filed the lawsuit before the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It alleged that subsequent to the acquisition of Waze by Alphabet Inc., Google captured roughly 81 percent of the navigation mapping market through the offering of Google Maps for free.

It further complained that Google constructed entry barriers by exploiting its treasure-trove of competitively valuable information, including without limitation, traffic, conditions and rerouting information, interior and exterior photographs, reviews, and commentary from Google+ friends.

The plaintiffs stated that the Company had imposed restrictive terms of service upon the developers to maintain a monopoly throughout the relevant product markets of Maps APIs, Routes APIs, and Places APIs, in addition to cloud computing, through anti-competitive acquisitions.

It used data amassed through its consumer services including Gmail, YouTube, Chrome, and Android OS to lock in substantial app developer demand. It also gave self-preference over products from app developers using Alphabet Inc. products and services, using Google's market power to impair actual or potential rivals from accessing data that could allow them to compete with Google.

The plaintiffs argued that Google violated federal antitrust law by unlawfully tying in and bundling the distribution of the products. This violated 15 USC §§ 1 and 2.