• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, Yesterday

Conservative video platform Rumble on Wednesday appealed an order dismissing its claims that Google violated antitrust law by allegedly promoting YouTube in the search results, and installing YouTube on Android devices.

Rumble hasn't yet filed substantive arguments with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will preside over the appeal.

Late last month, U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr. in the Northern District of California threw out Rumble's lawsuit, writing that the company's claims fell outside antitrust law's four-year statute of limitations.

The legal dispute between Rumble and Google dates to January 2021, when Rumble alleged that Google manipulated search results to rank YouTube highly, effectively diverting traffic to YouTube and depriving Rumble of “the additional traffic, users, uploads, brand awareness and revenue it would have otherwise received.”

Rumble also alleged that Google wrongly required smartphone manufacturers to install YouTube in order to license the Android operating system.

Google argued both that self-preferencing doesn't violate antitrust laws, and also that even if self-preferencing could be anti-competitive, the evidence didn't show that Google either rigged search results or thwarted installations of Rumble on Androids.

Google also said Rumble's claims were untimely, arguing that, according to Rumble's complaint, any alleged antitrust violations would have started in 2014 -- soon after Rumble launched.

Gilliam agreed with Google that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations, ruling that any alleged antitrust violations would have affected Rumble as early as April 2014 -- meaning that Rumble's deadline to file suit expired in April 2018.

Last year, Rumble filed a separate antitrust suit against Google. That matter was recently transferred to U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel in the Southern District of New York.