• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 23, 2017

The social media company Gab, known for attracting far-right users, on Sunday dropped its antitrust suit against Google.

Gab sued Google in September, soon after Google banned the Gab app from the Play Store over violations of Google's hate speech policies. Gab said Sunday that it was withdrawing the lawsuit, and is asking Google to review its decision to exclude the app from the Play Store.

"Gab has been in productive back-channel talks with Google since our initial filing of the case," Gab said in a post on Medium. "We were encouraged to resubmit our app before the Android store, as opposed to going forth with continued expensive litigation, of which would have cost the company a great fortune in both time and resources."

Gab also tied its decision to drop the case to the recent nomination of antitrust lawyer Joseph Simons as Federal Trade Commission Chair. It's not yet clear how Simons will approach antitrust issues as FTC Chair, but he has previously represented corporate clients like Microsoft, Mastercard and Time Warner Cable.  

Google banned Gab at around the same time that Andrew Anglin, founder of white supremacist site The Daily Stormer, began using the app to distribute articles.

Gab says it prohibits unlawful posts, including posts calling for violence, and ones with threatening language, but doesn't ban speech that is offensive but legal. Immediately after Google's move, Gab tweeted that users could still download the app to Android devices, but would have to visit Gab's home page -- as opposed to the Google Play Store -- to do so.

Gab said Sunday that it will lobby Congress against "monopolized tech giants" and will explore filing a complaint with the FTC. "Our company has objectively been treated unfairly and discriminated against on spurious grounds," the company wrote.