Google dodges antitrust suit over mapping services

SAN FRANCISCO(CN) — A federal judge on Monday night dismissed an antitrust class action accusing Google of using monopoly power to dominate the GPS navigation market.

Dream Big Media and other plaintiffs sued Google in 2022 claiming the tech giant forced users of digital-mapping products into a bundle of services — a “tying” agreement — before raising the cost of those products.

Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed Google violated the Sherman Act by forbidding app developers from mixing-and-matching Google Maps software with other mapping solutions. Google’s terms of service prevent customers who buy any one of its “Maps,” “Routes,” or “Places” APIs from using either of the other two categories of APIs provided by any other supplier, the plaintiffs claimed.

In court documents, Google argued the plaintiffs were not reading the company’s mapping terms of service correctly. A customer cannot “link” a Google map to a non-Google one, Google said.

APIs, or application programming interfaces, are a set of rules that allows software applications to communicate with each other. APIs act as a contract between applications, defining how they can exchange data, features, and functionality through requests and responses. Ride-hail apps such as Uber use the Google Maps API to help drivers and riders find each other, plan routes, and optimize shared rides.

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, a Barack Obama appointee, dismissed the claims from Dream Big Media and other plaintiffs Monday night after finding they failed to show anticompetitive conduct by Google since there are equal or better competitors on the market. The dismissal was with prejudice, meaning that the plaintiffs cannot amend the complaint.

“Plaintiffs cannot advance a plausible tying claim while simultaneously alleging that there are equal or better competitors in the alleged tying market. This same principle defeated the prior complaint’s theory that the same product could be either tied or tying. A tying arrangement gives rise to potential antitrust liability only when the seller has coerced the purchase of a tied product,” Seeborg wrote in a 9-page ruling.

The parties’ dispute centers on a paragraph of Google’s terms of service that purports to restrict a purchaser of Google Maps APIs from linking a Google Map to non-Google content or product.

The plaintiffs contended this section should be interpreted as prohibiting a person who has purchased Google Maps APIs from using a competitor’s routes and/or places APIs in conjunction with a Google Map. Google, however, insisted its Maps customers are free to use a competitors’ routes or places APIs with their Google maps, as long as they do not link those Maps to non-Google content or non-Google maps, such that an end user would be redirected from the Google Map to non-Google content.

Seeborg sided with Google on the disputed terms of service section, ruling that there was no proof that Google prevented customers from using competitors’ places or routes.

“Plaintiffs have not presented plausible factual allegations that Google has precluded its Maps APIs customers from turning to its competitors for their routes and places API needs, either by the express terms of the TOS, or through some chilling effect arising from ambiguity or possible implication, or through any other means,” Seeborg wrote.

This is the second time Seeborg dismissed the complaint against Google. In December, he ruled that the plaintiffs’ antitrust claims are weakened by the fact that several competitors offer mapping services that are “as good as or better in terms of performance and/or cost.”

Counsel for Google and Dream Big Media did not respond to requests for comment.