Rumble Sues Google for Unfair Practices in Video Search Rankings

YouTube rival Rumble has filed a lawsuit against Google for its unfair practices in video search rankings. The company is seeking monetary damages for more than $2 billion. Can this lawsuit change Google’s position in the search business?

In a move to oppose Google’s online search dominance, Rumble, a video sharing platform, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant. According to the Wall Street JournalOpens a new window , Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit against the search engine giant in the federal court of California on January 11, 2020. Reportedly, Google has violated antitrust laws by unfairly rigging its search algorithms to divert traffic away from YouTube’s rivals.

Today, Rumble has filed a lawsuit against Google for antitrust violations.

— Chris Pavlovski (@chrispavlovski) January 12, 2021Opens a new window

Rumble, a Canada-based video sharing site that has gained popularity among conservatives, cited that the pre-installed YouTube app on Android devices has impacted its viewers, traffic, brand awareness, and advertising revenue. 

According to the complaintOpens a new window , “Google has willfully maintained and abused its monopoly power in the relevant market here through anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct as set forth above, which include rigging its search engine algorithms such that YouTube videos will always be listed first in the search results, and by providing pre-installation and prominent placement of Google’s YouTube apps on its own and requiring other smartphone manufacturers to do the same.”

However, a Google spokeswoman said, “We will defend ourselves against these baseless claims.” Google’s dominance in the search business and a tight grip on Android devices has squashed rivals and entrants from the competition. This has led to increased scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators across the world. This lawsuit echoes the landmark antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against Google’s growing market dominance in search engine and online advertising.

Chris Pavlovski, CEO of Rumble, saidOpens a new window , “As stated in the complaints filed by the Department of Justice and many state Attorneys Generals (AGs) against Google, Google uses its search engine monopoly to wrongfully achieve and maintain monopolies for its many companies, and in this case, we have indisputable proof that it does so for its YouTube platform, harming competition, competitors and consumers.

Despite having exclusive ownership of the videos posted on Rumble, the company claimed that Google’s anticompetitive conduct forced it to syndicate its videos to YouTube. The complaint also alleged that it had lost a large share of revenue on the 9.3 billion views that Google wrongfully directed to YouTube with its unfair YouTube-preferencing algorithms. 

“Google’s monopoly power is being used to unjustly and wrongfully deprive Rumble of the views, users, uploads, and consumer awareness, and the revenue for it and its content creators, that would be theirs in an un-rigged marketplace,” addedOpens a new window Pavlovski.

Rumble company is seeking damages of more than $2 billion from Google.

The lawsuit was filed on the same day Parler, a social media platform for conservatives, sued Amazon for shutting down its servers in the wake of the U.S. Capitol riots.

The growing antitrust lawsuits against big tech companies is proof that lawmakers are working toward weakening big tech’s stranglehold in the tech industry. It is time for big tech to create a fair playing field for competitors. This leaves us with a burning question — can lawsuits by small companies affect the foothold of big tech companies such as Google or will the tech giants continue to dominate the market for years to come?

What are your thoughts on a new antitrust lawsuit against Google? Comment below or let us know on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to hear from you!