I would lean towards believing their is some validity to this suit. Google can be very Draconian in how they do things and historically that has always been human nature. Google is very powerful right now and power is the ultimate corrupter. Many of their practices tread the line between ensuring good user experiences and being manipulative, Google's Quality Score for example. The reasons for Google's Quality Score is absolutely on point, but the way they have applied (subjectivity being the worst aspect of it) it lends itself to the exact thing this company is complaining about. The QS enables Google to manipulate advertising on it's search engine and we are suppose to just trust that they are doing everything on the up and up, in the best interest of the visitor (heavy sarcasm). If you believe that, then I got some land I want to sell you on the moon.
Google's greed has grown to the point that they are making business decisions based purely on money. I'm sure TradeComet has a valid suit, but I don't see their legal team matching what Google throws at them. Small companies just don't stand a chance against giants like Google.
I suppose that is for a federal trial judge to decide...but we as webmasters know how evil and money hungry google truly is and when you take into consideration that they occupy 80% of the worlds searches they have become dictators as has been shown in the last few years with childish penalties, de-indexing with no reasons and not wanting to explain anything and offering nothing but lies as the end result. While i agree that they will meet a wall of attorneys if they do succeed then they could take some of that all mighty power away to where its fair for everyone to make a living and prosper online (not just them). laterz malcolm
Source Tool doesn't have to pay for Ad-words, nobody is pointing a gun to their heads! Google is a very democratic system: If you do the proper SEO, you can be on top for FREE. because of this very principle, their lawsuit lacks merit and will be thrown out of court!