Executives at Yelp and TripAdvisor are angry at Google for burying their search results well below its own offerings — an issue the search giant says was caused by a "bug" — Re/code reports.
Users who searched for queries that contained the company names — e.g. "yelp ozumo" or "TripAdvisor Hilton" — found that a Google-related result was the top option, which takes up the whole page on a mobile device. This would, according to Re/code, direct traffic away from Yelp and TripAdvisor.
Google responded in a statement claiming that the problem was a result of a bug. "The issues cited were caused by a recent code push, which we’re working quickly to fix," a spokesperson told Re/code.
It's not clear how long the fix will take. Business Insider contacted Google for clarification but the company provided no additional comment beyond the statement provided to Re/code.
Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO of Yelp, told Re/code: "Google is now intentionally providing the wrong answers for local searches on the mobile Web. This is not good for consumers or for competition but good for maintaining Google’s monopoly."
He added in a tweet that Google is "about as truthful as [Donald] Trump."
—Jeremy Stoppelman (@jeremys) November 24, 2015
He linked to a tweet that demonstrates Google's alleged bad practises.
—stephen kaufer (@kaufer) November 22, 2015
On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.
