A federal court judge dismissed a case against Google (Thursday 13 July) after the search engine giant was accused of adopting monopolistic policies to undermine companies' page rankings.
Kinderstart.com - a parenting website - filed a complaint 4 month's ago after its page ranking dropped to a resounding “0” in Google searches. Kinderstart claimed that this had resulted in 2005, to a 70 per cent fall in traffic and accused Google of using “pervasive monopolistic practices” to those companies perceived as competition by Google.
Kinderstart filed its suit on behalf of other websites that it claimed also had been penalised by Google because they were deemed competitors. The court heard that Google is seen as the major influence for helping websites gain exposure on the Web. Due to this power, Kinderstart wanted Google to reveal exactly how page ranking works. In its class action, Kinderstart states,
"As the world's most widely used and increasingly ubiquitous search engine, millions of Websites of persons, businesses and organisations in the United States are not accessible, seen or heard by a multitude of persons, businesses and organisations as users if the electronic link or connection is severed by [Google].”
In court, Google defended itself by arguing that rankings are merely opinions and as such, are protected by the US's first amendment which protects the freedom of speech.
All 9 counts in the complaint were judged to be insufficient to refer the case to trial. Judge Jeremy Fogel implied that the courts would be unwilling to force Google to disclose its page ranking methods, “You can't just file a blanket lawsuit and say, ‘We think we're going to find some stuff',” he was reported as saying.
A hearing date has been set for September when the court will consider an application from Google to dismiss some of Kinderstart's allegations due to California's free speech laws.
privacy and cookies policy