A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Google of being an Internet search monopoly that choked off traffic to a child-care Web site by assigning it a zero ranking, court documents showed, according to an AFP report.
The AFP report said US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel tossed out claims that Google unfairly discriminated against KinderStart.com and stifled its free speech rights by giving it the lowest ranking in searches.
Fogel ruled Google was entitled to express its subjective opinion in page rankings based on the formula the search engine claimed it used to make the determinations, the report said.
KinderStart, a Web site containing child-care information of potential interest to parents or teachers, had its ranking on Google dropped to zero in March of last year, according to a company lawyer.
The company said this implied Google was "blocking" online traffic to the site, which had been online for almost six years, the report further said.