I think it's a stretch to say that searching for HVAC business listings and searching for HVAC business reviews are really different markets. If google had an HVAC subsidiary and they suppressed all search results and ads for competing HVAC companies, that would be abusing their dominant position in the search market to create dominance in another market. But is it really monopolistic behaviour to use their web search dominance to succeed in a slightly more specific sector of the web search market? You can use google to find reviews of products and services. They advertise alongside those search results. That is their core business. Yelp is a straight-up competitor. "Google is better than us in the market we compete in" isn't a valid anti-trust complaint.
And the query specifically included the word Yelp.
A big part of why tech users don't understand why Google is being subject to antitrust action is that a lot of people in the tech industry literally have no idea how everyone else uses their computers. Like not understanding that people tend to go to Yelp by Googling "yelp" and clicking the first link. (Which is sadly, usually a malicious Google Ad imitating Yelp, but I digress.)
... half serious?
Unfortunately there are countless counterexamples. It's an interesting ideal, but without court action it's toothless. And court action risks having a chilling effect on certain kinds of positive forces.
If I put a competitor (eg. yelp, angie[slist], etc) into my search query, I get only results for those competitors. Leave the qualifying term out, and I get a SERP of all non-Google review sites. But again, I enter "yelp pizza" and get all Yelp results. Hell, I enter "pizza reviews" and get Yelp as the top 3 links of my SERP.
This links to the Google comparison shopping site, which Google receives affiliate income for. The Google comparison shopping site is ok, but no better than many others.
I generally like the work Google does, but I think that there are some questions around using their dominant position in organic web search to move into a new market. To be clear, I'm not absolutely opposed to this, but I can see problems.
As far as I know it's only illegal when there is harm to consumers. Antitrust laws are meant to protect consumers, not competitors.
That's precisely the issue. It can be illegal to use your market dominance in one area (search) to reinforce or create market dominance in other areas. Microsoft had the best operating system and a browser that they wanted people to use. People preferred Netscape, but Microsoft used its OS dominance to kill off Netscape.
It is ok to be dominant in a product. You aren't, however, allowed to use the dominance in one product to gain you dominance in other products. Google has dominance in search, but using that to kill off competitors for their lesser-liked products isn't fair.
> They have achieved their dominance because their services are viewed as "best" by the majority of folks out there.
Their search service is viewed as "best" my most, but that doesn't mean their reviews service is. That's what's at issue. Being the best at one thing shouldn't allow you to stifle people that are better at another thing. That is certainly not best for consumers.
If Google were 20% of search traffic, they could do many things because there's no dominance at issue. Since Google is the vast majority of search traffic, they can effectively eliminate most competitors. Starting a reviews site? Your listings will fall below our own regardless of their merit. Starting a videos site, YouTube alternatives will always be shown first even if it's not what the user is looking for.
YouTube should be popular on its own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to choke competitors. Google's reviews should be popular on their own merit, not based on Google using its search dominance to kill off Yelp.
I do want to clarify that I'm not saying that Google is guilty of doing this, but that when you get to a certain market dominance, you can kill off competitors that are better than you by starving them rather than by being better than them. It's important that third-parties can compete with Google's non-search services without having Google's search service unreasonably favor Google's non-search services.