Kindertrust’s Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against Google Dismissed And Yet A Question Remains

US Federal court judge, Jeremy Fogel, dismissed Kinderstart’s, education website, lawsuit against Google. The lawsuit accused Google of “”pervasive monopolistic practices” that denied its free speech rights, destroyed competition, and led to predatory pricing conditions”.

The judge dismissed all nine counts of Kinderstart’s complaint, all centred on claims of monopolistic practices by Google, claiming there was not enough evidence for the case to go to trial, but giving the California-based company time to amend and resubmit its case.

Kinderstart attorneys are now seeking other companies who are aggrieved about Google’s rankings to join Kinderstart in a class action suit.

It is surprising to see how companies fail to realize that page rank is simply an opinion from Google on the importance of your web page. It is mostly automated, makes mistakes and yet overall does a decent job, at least compared with the alternatives(?).

Unfortunately it is also true that Google has significant impact on any sites’s ad revenue (which are based on site popularity). So it would only be fair for Google to voluntarily open their algorithm to trusted and neutral third parties for an independent audit on its neutrality. That would put millions of webmaster’s at ease on the level playing field.