• by Wendy Davis , 7 hours ago

The search advertiser California Crane School, which trains crane operators, has asked the Supreme Court to review a lower court's dismissal of a class-action complaint alleging that Apple and Google conspired to avoid competing in paid search.

In a petition filed last week with the court, California Crane argues that it should have been allowed to proceed with allegations that Google's search partnership with Apple -- which involved Google serving as the default search engine for the Safari browser -- resulted in higher prices for search ads.

U.S. District Court Judge P. Casey Pitts in the Northern District of California dismissed the case against Apple, and sent claims against Google to arbitration because its contract with advertisers requires arbitration of disputes.

Pitts said in his March 2024 ruling that California Crane's allegations -- even if proven true -- wouldn't show that Google and Apple were engaged in an illegal conspiracy.

After Pitts handed down the decision, California Crane asked him to reconsider in light of evidence that emerged during the government's antitrust trial against Google in federal court in Washington, D.C. In that matter, the Department of Justice and a coalition of states claimed Google wrongly monopolized search due to its search distribution deals, including the partnership with Apple.

Pitts rejected California Crane's argument, noting that the evidence in the government's case against Google wouldn't have changed his ruling. (Shortly after Pitts issued that decision, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C. found that Google monopolized search as a result of its distribution deals with Apple and other companies.)

California Crane then appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Pitts' ruling.

The company is now asking the Supreme Court to intervene, essentially arguing that Pitts and the 9th Circuit failed to adequately consider the evidence the Justice Department presented to Mehta in its antitrust suit against Google.

"The trial evidence in the Mehta case established that Google’s monopoly power, maintained by exclusive distribution agreements, enabled it to increase text ad prices without meaningful competitive constraint," California Crane writes in its petition for review.

California Crane also argues that the arbitration clause in its contract with Google shouldn't have been enforced.

The 9th Circuit had upheld that clause, ruling it was not "unconscionable."

"Google’s Terms of Service allow would-be advertisers like Crane a chance to opt out of arbitration and still purchase advertising services, yet Crane never opted out," the appellate judges wrote in September.

California Crane now argues to the Supreme Court that the ability to opt out was "illusory," claiming that "no evidence established Google would have continued to deal with Petitioners had they opted out."

Apple on Friday waived its right to respond to the petition.

Google hasn't yet filed a response with the court.