Google filed a motion to dismiss Friday in the antitrust case being brought by the owners of local newspapers in Arkansas and Mississippi that accuse the company of monopolizing markets for internet search and online news through various practices.
The motion argued that the papers lack standing to bring the search claims, since they do not participate in the search market. It also said the newspapers have not shown that users view search results as a substitute for their publications, meaning they failed to define a relevant market for online news.
"Although plaintiffs identify search features that display a snippet of content from a webpage along with a link to that page, they have not plausibly alleged that these features render Google Search reasonably interchangeable with websites that 'publish professional works of journalism,'" the motion said.
The papers' claim that Google is monopolizing the online news market targets Google's republishing of content on its search results page and news properties and its use of the content to train artificial intelligence models, all without compensation.
The motion argued that the papers needed to define a market that includes both Google and themselves but failed to show that people consider search results a substitute for news content. The motion also said they failed to explain why the other ways people consume news, including through television, mobile apps and podcasts, are not considered substitutes.
The newspapers' claim that Google is monopolizing a general search market is similar to a case being brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and a contingent of state-level enforcers focused on profit sharing agreements that make Google the default search engine across a range of devices in exchange for billions of dollars in shared ad revenue.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, who is also overseeing the newspapers' case, presided over a 10-week bench trial in the enforcer case last year, with closing arguments in May, but has yet to issue a decision.
Google said in Friday's motion that the newspapers are targeting a "monopoly broth" of far-flung conduct in their search monopoly claim, not just the default agreements. This includes a number of past acquisitions and allegations that Google rolled out artificial intelligence features for search before they were ready in order to undermine competition from Microsoft.
The motion said those types of allegations that lump together unrelated conduct are "not legally cognizable" and also argued that the papers lack standing anyway since neither participate in the search engine market.
"The claim should be dismissed because plaintiffs — who publish several newspapers — lack antitrust standing to complain about this conduct," the motion said.
Lodged in December, the suit now includes Helena World Chronicle LLC and Emmerich Newspapers Inc., the owners of local papers in Arkansas and Mississippi. In addition to the monopolization claims, the suit also accuses Google of violating antitrust law by illegally tying traffic from search results to the news content.
The papers contend that referrals they receive from Google are tied to their supply of content for republishing and AI training. But Google said in its motion that this is "simply not antitrust tying" because the newspapers are not alleging that they are required to purchase two products from Google at all.
The papers do not purchase traffic referrals from Google, the motion said, and they are the ones supplying content.
The suit also targets Google's acquisitions of YouTube, Android and DeepMind as alleged violations of the merger law. The motion Friday argued that the papers lack standing to bring those claims as well, since they do not participate in the markets involved, and said the four-year statute of limitations has lapsed for the deals anyway.
The suit also includes a claim that Google's profit-sharing agreement making it the default search engine on Apple devices is an agreement to keep Apple out of the search engine market. But Google said in Friday's motion that this "allegation is not remotely plausible," and said the papers do not even allege that Apple ever had plans for its own search engine.
Representatives for Google and the papers did not respond to requests for comment Monday.
The newspaper owners are represented by Michael D. Hausfeld, Scott A. Gilmore, Mandy Boltax, Scott Martin and Michael P. Lehmann of Hausfeld LLP, Michael L. Roberts, Erich P. Schork, Kelly A. Rinehart and Sarah DeLoach of Roberts Law Firm US PC, John W. Barrett and Katherine B. Riley of Barrett Law Group PC, and by Michael J. Flannery, Pamela Gilbert, Daniel M. Cohen and Lissa Morgans of Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP.
Google is represented by John E. Schmidtlein, Kenneth C. Smurzynski, Graham Safty and Youlin Yuan of Williams & Connolly LLP.
The case is Helena World Chronicle LLC v. Google LLC et al., case number 1:23-cv-03677, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
--Additional reporting Bryan Koenig. Editing by Kelly Duncan.
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