Google Travel Feeling Intensified Antitrust Pressure
Photo Credit: Pictured is a Google Hotels display on iPhone. A Wall Street Journal editorial on December 27 alleged that Google steers consumers to its own businesses to the detriment of competition. Skift
Skift Take
Might 2018 be the year U.S. regulators take a hard look anew at Google's travel-business practices after declining to take action in 2012? We hope so, in the interests of fair play, although the Trump Administration has been keen to reduce government regulation of businesses, not increase it.
Google is not only feeling antitrust heat in Europe, where the European Union leveled a $2.7 billion fine against it in June over its shopping business, but now Google is feeling regulatory pressure in the U.S. over its travel-business practices, as well.
A Wall Street Journal Editorial Board opinion piece Wednesday on what it termed the Google-Hotel Travelopy called on Google to compete fairly by giving free rein to smaller online travel agencies to use hotel trademarks in their Google ads and URLs, and to stop biasing search results in favor of Google's own flight and hotel metasearch businesses to the detriment of competitors' businesses.
"Google ought to compete on fair terms by opening its auctions to all players and stop favoring its meta-search," the Wall Street Journal editorial concluded. "Otherwise, regulators may soon ask if the search giant is abusing its market power."
Google spokesman Alex Krasov said the Wall Street Journal editorial "mischaracterized" some
