TradeComet, in a statement, said it filed a complaint this week in US District Court in New York asserting "Google violates antitrust laws by eliminating competition and choice."

"Google's anticompetitive conduct eliminated TradeComet as a competitor," said the company, which was founded in September 2005.

TradeComet said that in 2006, its subsidiary, SourceTool.com, "operated a thriving global business-to-business search engine enabling buyers of industrial products to easily connect with suppliers."

It said SourceTool "took off-within months reaching 650,000 visits per day" and was "positioned as a competitor to Google's general purpose search engine."

"Google subsequently identified SourceTool.com as a competitive threat and then engaged in illegal conduct to diminish and ultimately extinguish SourceTool.com's platform," it added.

TradeComet accused Google of manipulating advertising rates to drive it out of business.

"With no notice, Google changed from cheerleader to tyrant when it realized we were a competitive threat," said TradeComet founder and chief executive Dan Savage.

"For example, Google raised my prices by 10,000 percent, which strangled our business, virtually overnight," he said. "As a result of Google flexing its monopolistic muscle, SourceTool.com currently averages about one percent of the traffic it previously had and is no longer a competitively viable business."

"SourceTool.com offered a valuable service and TradeComet.com had a thriving business before Google decided to eliminate them as a competitor," said Rick Rule, whose firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, is representing TradeComet.

"We believe this complaint has strong merit and represents a serious antitrust violation," he added.

In a statement, Google said it had "not yet had a chance to review the (TradeComet) complaint in detail."

"But, as we have consistently made clear, the advertising market in which Google operates is highly competitive, and advertisers have a huge range of choices," Google added.

TradeComet's complaint is not the first against Google, which controls more than 60 percent of the US search engine market.

In November, Google dropped a bid for a joint search advertising partnership with Yahoo!, the number two US search engine, to avert a potential "protracted legal battle" with US Justice Department antitrust regulators.

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