Aug 12 (Reuters) - A federal judge in California has

dismissed a lawsuit accusing Google of unlawfully dominating web

search on smartphones, but said the consumers should get another

chance after a Washington, D.C. court separately ruled the tech

giant spent billions to create an illegal monopoly.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco on Friday

dismissed the consumers' antitrust lawsuit against Google,

finding they had not provided enough factual evidence showing

any harm from the Alphabet unit's market dominance.

Lin said the plaintiffs could file an amended lawsuit,

citing the D.C. court's blockbuster Aug. 6 ruling that found

Google's exclusive contracts with Apple and other companies

helped it create an illegal monopoly over search engines.

"Although these findings were made in another litigation

involving different issues, they indicate that plaintiffs may be

able to plausibly allege facts about consumer harm from the

alleged anticompetitive effects of Google's default agreements,"

Lin wrote in her order.

Google and attorneys for the consumers did not immediately

respond to requests for comment.

The consumers first filed their case in 2022, accusing

Google of unlawfully scheming with Apple to make Google the

exclusive preloaded default search engine on the iPhone maker's

devices.

Lin dismissed an earlier version of the case based on a lack

of facts. In her latest ruling, she again faulted the plaintiffs

for making "conclusory" and "speculative" assertions.

"Although plaintiffs add more words to their recitation of

potential harms to consumer choice, innovation, and search

quality, they do not add the necessary factual allegations," Lin

wrote.

Still, the ruling could give the consumer plaintiffs some

hope. Lin's order pointed several times to aspects of U.S.

District Judge Amit Mehta's decision last week against Google in

Washington.

After a weeks-long non-jury trial, Mehta concluded Google's

billions in payments to Apple and other tech companies to be the

default search engine violated antitrust law.

Google has denied the allegations in both cases, and it said

it would appeal Mehta's order.

Lin set a Sept. 9 deadline for the consumers to file an

amended complaint.

The case is Arcell v. Google LLC, U.S. District Court,

Northern District of California, No. 22-cv-02499-RFL.

For plaintiffs: Joseph Alioto of Alioto Law Firm, and

Lawrence Papale of Law Office of Lawrence Papale

For Google: John Schmidtlein and Carol Pruski of Williams &

Connolly

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Google has an illegal monopoly on search, US judge finds