Tech companies are always in the news. If their latest product or services are not on the spotlight, they're usually the subject of criticisms and controversies. Such is the case with Google who has been on the receiving end of yet another issue.

These past few days, top officers from internet companies Yelp and TripAdvisor, observed that Google search results on smartphones for their businesses can be found buried under the said tech company's own. This move looks like a strategy to block out or get ahead of their competitors and is the complete opposite of what Google's position on search.

According to a statement by their spokesperson; the issues or problems that the said companies have been complaining about is caused by a bug on a recent update they had. The spokesperson also assured the public that the company is working as fast as they could to solve and fix the said issue.

Google's competitor Yelp however is not please, as the said issues can be diverting tons of traffic from them and other similar companies. Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman was even quoted saying, or accusing the company, that the issue is not really a bug per se or a glitch. Rather, it is a part of a pattern of behavior that the company has been employing.

Last Sunday, Stoppelman has even flagged down an issue with Google's navigational search wherein even TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer has chimed in and said in a post that when one tried "Search for tripadvisor Hilton" the tripadvisor link was placed so far down the results that it could be barely seen.

Stoppelman also said that the giant tech company seems to be intentionally providing the wrong answers for local searches made through mobile internet; which confuses users, elbow out competitors and strengthen Google's monopoly.

It can be noted that both Yelp and TripAdvisor are complainants at the earlier European Union versus Google case due to the tech company's anticompetitive behavior. Most of their complaints revolve around the claim that Google is intentionally promoting their own products through local search results over other companies.

Yelp even went as far as recruiting one of Google's ex defenders, legal scholar Tim Wu for this case. During the antitrust cases, Google has been seen arguing that their search products are driven by their consumers' needs and not driven by competition as claimed by their accusers.

So far, no other statements were given by Google's spokesperson regarding how long it will take the company to fix the said glitch or bug that they claim is the reason for the latest controversy.