http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18552New York search engine TradeComet is suing Google claiming it’s violating anti-trust laws by eliminating competition and choice. The company says it was forced to file the lawsuit, “when Google refused to stop engaging in predatory conduct to block search traffic by imposing massive, unjustified price increases,” it says in a statement. This, says TradeComet, effectively eliminated it as a competitor.
The statement continues »»»
SourceTool.com, a subsidiary of TradeComet.com, operated a thriving global business-to-business (B2B) search engine enabling buyers of industrial products to easily connect with suppliers. SourceTool.com focused on a specialized type of industrial search, which it positioned as a competitor to Google’s general purpose search engine. Due to SourceTool’s utility for buyers, sellers and advertisers, the site took off—within months reaching 650,000 visits per day. SourceTool.com also was named a ‘2006 Rising Star of Specialized Search’ by InfoCommerce and the ‘Second Fastest Growing Internet Site in the World’ by Comscore. Google initially embraced its relationship with SourceTool.com, naming them Google’s ‘Site of the Week’; SourceTool.com was reinvesting approximately 80 percent of its revenue by purchasing $500,000 per month or more in Google keywords. In its complaint, TradeComet.com says Google subsequently identified SourceTool.com as a competitive threat, “and then engaged in illegal conduct to diminish and ultimately extinguish SourceTool.com’s platform”.
*sigh* That's what you get when big bucks are involved. To the public they try to portray themselves as squeaky clean, but behind the scenes........
