The main point of contention
Analysts say the main problem lies in the conflicting business models, as both Google and Yelp rely on advertising revenue.
Additionally, there are significant concerns about how user traffic is channeled to specialized vertical providers (SVPs) such as Yelp, Zillow, OpenTable and Glassdoor.
“The discovery aspect is the main area of conflict, given that Google has the ability to control and direct the majority of search traffic, whether to sponsored listings, its own properties, or to these SVPs, since most user searches for a point of interest (POI) begin on Google,” said Neil Shah, partner and co-founder of Counterpoint Research. “For SVPs like Yelp, the expectation is that Google will display results fairly rather than direct traffic to their preferred destinations, which could hurt their business. Transparency and fairness in this process is what Yelp and other SVPs are looking for.”