Judge rules against users suing Apple, Google over ‘annoying, distorted’ search results

A California judge has dismissed a lawsuit from 26 Google users who claimed that Google’s default search agreement with Apple violates antitrust law and created an “annoying and damaging distortion” of search results.
Ashley Belanger for Ars Technica:
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Users had argued that Google struck a deal making its search engine the default on Apple’s Safari web browser specifically to keep Apple from competing in the general search market. These payments to Apple, users alleged, have “stunted innovation” and “deprived” users of “quality, service, and privacy that they otherwise would have enjoyed but for Google’s anticompetitive conduct.” They also allege that it created a world where users have fewer choices, enabling Google to prefer its own advertisers, which users said caused an “annoying and damaging distortion” of search results.
In an order granting the tech companies’ motion to dismiss, US District Judge Rita Lin said that users did not present enough evidence to support claims for relief. Lin dismissed some claims with prejudice but gave leave to amend others, allowing users another chance to keep their case—now twice-dismissed—at least partially alive.
Under Lin’s order, users will not be able to amend claims that Google and Apple executives allegedly sealed the default search deal on the condition that Apple would not create its own general search engine through “private, secret, and clandestine personal meetings.” Because plaintiffs showed no evidence pinpointing exactly when Apple allegedly agreed to stay out of the general search market, these meetings, Lin reasoned, could just as easily indicate “rational, legal business behavior,” rather than an “illegal conspiracy.”

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MacDailyNews Take: Google is censored trash today, compared to how it was when it started, but that’s not Apple’s fault.
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