Google Is Target of ShopCity Antitrust Complaint to FTC

ShopCity.com, a website that helps local businesses sell products, says Google stifles competition in the Internet industry.

In a complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission, ShopCity accuses that Google unfairly used its control of search results to damage ShopCity – and favored Google’s own competing service. Closely held ShopCity, also based in Mountain View, started its network of local shopping websites in 2009. The 18-employee company bought 8,000 domains for cities around the U.S., and operates sites such as ShopPaloAlto.com and ShopCorona.com, Colin Pape, the president and co-founder, said. Initially, ShopCity purchased business profiles from a national database company. Subsequently, ShopCity struck partnerships with municipalities, newspapers and chambers of commerce to create more detailed content for the sites. ShopCity first noticed in 2009 Google had pushed its websites down to the fifth page of results for searches, “where few users would ever find them.” ShopCity attempted to add more “high quality content” in response to Google’s complaints, yet failed to win higher placement in search results, he said. Regardless of the relevance of ShopCity’s websites to a user’s query, “Google placed its own results, keyed to a map, at the top of the results.”