Google dodges lawsuit
2006-07-15 09:54
San Francisco - A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Google of being an internet search monopoly that choked off traffic to a child-care website by assigning it a zero ranking, court documents showed on Friday.
US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel tossed out claims that Google unfairly discriminated against KinderStart.com and stifled its free speech rights by giving it the lowest ranking in searches.
Fogel ruled Google was entitled to express its subjective opinion in page rankings based on the formula the search engine claimed it used to make the determinations.
KinderStart, a website containing child-care information of potential interest to parents or teachers, had its ranking on Google dropped to zero in March of last year, according to a company lawyer.
The company said this implied Google was "blocking" online traffic to the site which has been online for almost six years.