SVPs can provide answers to noncommercial queries or take a user to a desired location on the web through a navigational query. And no SVP can answer long-tail queries like a GSE. Thus, an SVP may be reasonably interchangeable with a GSE for a discrete purpose but for not the “same purposes.”
Second, “the mere fact that a firm may be termed a competitor in the overall marketplace does not necessarily require that it be included in the relevant product market for antitrust purposes.” FTC v. Staples, Inc., 970 F. Supp. 1066, 1075 (D.D.C. 1997). That is the lesson learned from the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Whole Foods and the district court’s decision in Staples. In Whole Foods, the fact that consumers “cross-shopped” between premium and organic supermarkets and ordinary supermarkets did not require the latter’s inclusion in the relevant market. 548 F.3d at 1040 (Brown, J.). Likewise, in Staples, the court held that office supply superstores constituted a relevant product market even though consumers also purchased such products through other retail outlets. 970 F. Supp. at 1079. A similar analysis applies here. The fact that GSEs may compete for travel queries against Booking.com, shopping queries against Amazon, and local queries against Yelp does not mean that firms that specialize in certain verticals belong in the same product market as GSEs. The fact that users “cross-query” does not require all online query sources be lumped together in the same market.
To challenge this conclusion, Google points to a 2020 Bank of America study, which asked participants where they begin online shopping searches: 58% responded Amazon, only 25% chose Google. FOF ¶ 151. “But the fact that [two firms] ‘are direct competitors in some submarkets . . . is not the end of the inquiry[.]’” Whole Foods, 548 F.3d at 1040 (Brown, J.) (quoting United States v. Conn. Nat. Bank, 418 U.S. 656, 664 n.3 (1974)). The Bank of America study merely demonstrates that Google and Amazon compete for shopping queries, which comprise a minority
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