Last week, Google achieved a minor victory which could have still affected the search engine giant significantly. The victory came for a private antitrust suit which was ruled by an Ohio judge. The judgment tossed out the charge made by a tiny search company, MyTriggers. MyTriggers basically is a comparison shopping search tool provider and the lawsuit filed by the company stated that Google had manipulated search results in efforts to avoid major limelight to the former, which acted as a roadbloack for MyTriggers’s business from taking off.
The response of MyTriggers.com Inc. was to a 2009 Google lawsuit seeking $335,000 in advertising payments as it accused Google of raising the minimum price for keywords which could have been integral for leads coming to MyTriggers.com. This according to MyTriggers was an act to eliminate effectively the competitiveness as it was a possible competitor to Google. However the action had no real reaction from Judge John P. Bessey made a 14-page ruling to reject the counter-suit.
According to CNET, it was interesting to note that the claim was made only after the search engine giant posted a demand for $335,000 which was in respect of unpaid bills from MyTriggers. Wall Street Journal reported that the judgment went against MyTriggers as the company was unable to prove its point that the business practices of Google were harmful to competition as a whole. Judge John P. Bessey even had wrote:
“The counterclaim only alleges harm to myTriggers itself. myTriggers’ allegations do not meet the necessary standard for pleading an antitrust injury.”
There is even a Microsoft connection to this lawsuit as long-time Microsoft antitrust specialist Rick Rule was representing MyTriggers along with his well-known law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, which is based out of Washington DC. However, the software giant continues to say that they do not have any involvement in any of the lawsuits which are filed against Google. Rule representing the company had yet again made this lawsuit an important one.
This is not the first time Rule was representing a company for a lawsuit against Google. In July this year, TradeComet had a separate private lawsuit filed against Google where Rule was representing TradeComet. Then again the search engine giant was successful as the lawsuit was dismissed. The appeals court of New York had turned down TradeComet’s bid to overturn the decision. At that time even, Microsoft had made the same statement for denial of wetting its hands in the lawsuit against its Web rival.
A law firm partner with Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Jonathan Kanter, said that MyTriggers was now opting to review the decision and the next steps are being considered. However, there ere no further comments made by Cadwalader. Google even declined to make a formal comment for the case.
However, this current lawsuit victory makes it all clear for Google as they have as of now won all the known private lawsuits which were levied against them in the US. This does not meant that Google can be all relaxed as they still have to worry about the FTC antitrust investigation which is related to its business practices.