YouTube Competitor Rumble Sues Google over Search Rankings
Alex Wong/ Getty
Alana Mastrangelo
Video platform Rumble has filed a lawsuit against Google alleging that the tech giant is "unfairly rigging its search algorithm" in favor of YouTube videos in its search results.
Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal court in California alleging that Google is "unfairly rigging its search algorithms" to place YouTube above Rumble in its search results, according to a report by Wall Street Journal.
Rumble has become an alternative to YouTube for many conservative pundits, especially in the wake of big tech companies banning President Donald Trump, which resulted in a social media exodus among conservatives from their platforms.
"Google, through its search engine, was able to wrongfully divert massive traffic to YouTube, depriving Rumble of the additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and revenue it would have otherwise received," reads the lawsuit.
In its lawsuit, Rumble adds that it conducted a test and discovered that a Google search specifically for "funny dogs on rumble" returned a list of YouTube videos.
The lawsuit goes on to argue that Google's deals to pre-install the YouTube app on Android smartphones have unfairly deprived Rumble of viewers. The video-sharing company says that Google has cost it significant numbers of viewers and advertising dollars, which over a period would have generated "well in excess of $2 billion."
"We will defend ourselves against these baseless claims," said a Google spokeswoman.
The report added that Google is facing several other antitrust lawsuits in the United States. Two sets of U.S. states are accusing the tech giant of abusing the dominance of its search engine and its advertising business. The Justice Department also sued Google in October for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its search monopoly.
The Rumble lawsuit arrives the same day that social media platform Parler filed a lawsuit against Amazon after the tech giant booted the social media platform off its web hosting service on Sunday.
The lawsuit alleged that Amazon's decision to drop Parler was "motivated by political animus."
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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