Antitrust allegations against Google filed by YouTube competitor Rumble Inc.

Antitrust allegations against Google filed by YouTube competitor Rumble Inc.

Google is accused of suppressing competition to YouTube and depriving its competitors' revenue

Rumble, Inc. filed a lawsuit before the Northern District of California, contending that Google LLC and 10 unnamed defendants violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and Sections 4 and 15 of the Clayton Act by acquiring and maintaining a monopoly in the online video-sharing platforms market.

The complaint argued that Google unlawfully suppressed competition through various practices including purposefully rigging its search algorithms and illegally giving preference to its YouTube video-sharing platform over Rumble and other competitors in Google search result listings.

Rumble Inc., the plaintiff strenuously argued that Google eroded its success through anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior that accorded with its unlawful rise to the top of the search engine market, as referred in the Department of Justice's October 2020 complaint. The plaintiff claimed that Google's strength was 'ill-gotten' and that search engine market prominence to promote YouTube to the exclusion of other online video-sharing platforms.

Rumble Inc., proclaimed that it is unique among competitors because it has a widespread set of exclusively-assigned original content videos. For exclusive videos on its platform, Rumble receives between 10 US Dollar up to 30 US Dollar per thousand views, but when that search traffic is routed to YouTube, Rumble received only 0.48 US Dollar on average per thousand views of its videos from YouTube, the filing stated. Rumble contended that because of this pattern, it gets short shrift from Google's self-preferencing algorithms and its YouTube-partial search results listing.

Further, the complaint also contended that Google unfairly rigged its search algorithms to prioritize YouTube links by listing them 'above the fold' on its search results page. In addition to this, the complaint alleged, Google had wrongfully diverted scores of internet traffic to YouTube, thereby depriving Rumble of the additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and the revenue it would have otherwise received.

Along with this, Rumble accused Google of illegally tying the privilege of using its Android operating system to the requirement that manufacturers pre-install the YouTube app on Android operating system smartphones. The complaint alleged that this behavior further shows that YouTube over Rumble and others, harming competition in the online video-sharing platforms market.

"By unfairly rigging its search algorithms, Google has been able to wrongfully divert massive traffic to YouTube, depriving Rumble of the additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and the revenue it would have otherwise received," the complaint stated.

Rumble seeks to enjoin Google from its ostensibly illegal practices and requests treble damage for the harm caused and pleaded the relief that treble damages were harmed and requested for an injunction. However, Google is yet to respond to the complaint.