A federal judge has rejected Google’s attempt to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit, ruling that plaintiffs have “adequately alleged” a claim under a key antitrust law.
Rumble, a video platform, sued Google in 2021, charging that the company violated the Sherman Act, an 1890 law that outlaws anti-competitive practices.
Among the violations, according to the suit: Google “rigging its search algorithms” so that its videos would be preferred over Rumble’s and setting up a situation that led to the YouTube application being installed on many Android-based smartphones.
Google disputed the accusations in a motion to dismiss, saying the complaint was “based on conjecture, speculation, and uninformed media reports about how Google displays and ranks videos on its search engine results pages and how mobile device manufacturers license the YouTube app for preinstallation on Android devices.”…