The video-sharing platform Rumble is suing Google, accusing the YouTube owner of abusing its power in search and the mobile market by promoting its own platforms.
According Wall Street Journal, Canadian Rumble accused Google of “unfairly manipulating its search algorithm” and favoring video content hosted on YouTube over rival platforms. Rumble has become a popular video hosting platform for conservatives in the U.S. who claim that established technology platforms are engaged in censorship.
Rumble’s decision to sue Google comes at a time when the tech giant has been under pressure for antitrust issues in recent months. This lawsuit argues that it is unfair for YouTube to come pre-installed on many mobile devices, including within Google’s own Android operating system, as it diverts potential traffic from YouTube’s competitors.
The lawsuit states that “Google, through its search engine, was able to unduly divert large traffic to YouTube, depriving Rumble of additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and revenue it would have otherwise received”.
A Google spokesman said WSJ that they “will defend us against these unfounded claims”. An earlier investigation by the WSJ found that Google’s own search results generally favored videos hosted on YouTube over videos from rival platforms. This proved to be the basis for Rumble’s decision to sue the search giant.
In response to this previous investigation, Google suggested that no preference is given to YouTube content over other platforms or providers in Search.
Most of Rumble’s earnings are derived from licensing video content. With Rumble claiming that syndicated videos hosted on YouTube have accumulated over 9.3 billion total views since 2014, returning $ 4.3 million in ad revenue. Much of the basis for this process revolves around the principle that, while not all views were counted on its dedicated platform, a part would have, had Google not preferred YouTube content over Rumble content.
The Canadian company also made the bold claim that advertising revenue lost on potentially “missing” views would have generated “well over $ 2 billion”.
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