Antitrust Case Against Google Dismissed On Procedural Grounds

Handing Google a procedural victory in one of the antitrust lawsuits it's currently facing, a federal judge in New York has dismissed a case brought by the search marketer TradeComet on the grounds that the company should have filed the lawsuit in California.

US District Court Judge Sidney Stein ruled that TradeComet's antitrust claims "clearly arise out of and relate to Google's AdWords program," and therefore are covered by a clause in the AdWords contract requiring marketers to sue in Santa Clara County. TradeComet alleged in court papers last year that Google raised the minimum price per click it charged TradeComet's SourceTool.com division by 10,000%, from 5-10 cents per click to $5-$10 per click. As a result, SourceTool, a business-to-business vertical search site, had to stop buying as many keywords, leading visits to plummet to the point where it received only 1% of the traffic that previously came to the site. Stein's decision leaves TradeComet free to refile its antitrust allegations in California. The company also could appeal the dismissal to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.