By Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Google has failed to persuade a federal judge in California to dismiss a consumer lawsuit accusing the Alphabet GOOGL.O unit of illegally using business agreements with major tech companies to shut out rivals in the online search market.
U.S. District Judge Rita Lin’s order on Wednesday said the plaintiffs in the proposed class action had shown adequate evidence to move forward for now on their core claims alleging Google violated federal antitrust laws in developing and maintaining its search dominance.
The lawsuit, filed last year, focuses on agreements Google made with mobile device manufacturers and others. The claims mirror allegations in a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that led to a ruling in 2024 that the company holds an illegal monopoly in online search.
Lin ruled that the plaintiffs cannot bring claims related to Google's actions prior to 2017, delivering a partial win for Google, but she said they could try to reassert those claims.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and lead attorneys for the consumers had no immediate comment.
Google has denied any wrongdoing, and had asked Lin to dismiss the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs say Google locked up the search market by paying Apple, major Android phone makers, wireless carriers and browser developers to set Google as the preselected search engine across devices and apps.
They argue these deals kept competing search engines from gaining traction, limiting consumer choices and blocking alternatives that could have offered fewer ads, more privacy or possibly payments to users for searching.
Google said it was unrealistic to believe competing search engines would pay users or provide stronger privacy protections.
Lin found the complaint pointed to examples of smaller search engines offering rewards or ad‑free options and plausibly claimed they struggled because Google’s deals prevented them from reaching the scale needed to compete.
The case is James Attridge et al. v. Google, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 3:25-cv-02775-RFL.
For plaintiffs: David Boies and Mark Mao of Boies Schiller Flexner
For defendant: Sonal Mehta and David Gringer of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
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(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)
((Email: mike.scarcella@thomsonreuters.com; Phone: 202-985-8228.))
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