Google Lawsuit

MSN Tech & Gadgets: "Suit over poor Google ranking may go forward

By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: June 30, 2006, 2:59 PM PT

SAN JOSE, Calif.--A federal judge in California hinted that a parenting Web site that's suing Google over a poor ranking in the search giant's massive index would be able to proceed with its lawsuit.
During a hearing here Friday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said he's considering issuing an order that would allow KinderStart.com to amend its lawsuit against Google to add more specifics. The parent-focused directory and search engine site claims Google violated antitrust and other laws by handing KinderStart low rankings.
KinderStart alleges that its parenting search engine site suffered an approximate 70 percent drop in monthly traffic in March last year after Google buried its visibility in search results. KinderStart, which claims to have originally been in the first 10 results when Web users scoured the Internet for KinderStart, also saw an 80 percent drop in AdSense revenue.

'What Google is trying to do is take out the competition,' said Gregory Yu, KinderStart's attorney. "