Google Accused of Punishing Rivals

Three Internet companies will attack Google during Wednesday’s congressional antitrust hearings, claiming the popular search engine punished the sites by hiding their results for its own profit, representatives from the companies told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. The companies—Nextag, Yelp, and Expedia—will testify Wednesday that they are being targeted by Google because their sites have their own, non-Google-controlled search engines. “Google is the dominant digital advertising resource in the world, and Nextag is restricted from marketing itself to shoppers about the services we provide,” said Nextag chief executive Jeff Katz. Google has long denied making profits from punishing sites on its search engine, and specifically shut down Katz’s argument, saying that it couldn't use Nextag’s ads because they are “product-listing ads,” or an ad in which a product must be sold.