Articles tagged “antitrust”

Travelers indeed shop all over the place when they are doing trip-planning. But to downplay Google's dominant role, as an exec did Tuesday, when travel brands are spending billions of dollars annually with the search engine-turned-travel-product operator, is disingenuous.

When Priceline ended traveler fees on airline bookings a decade ago, the other online travel agencies generally followed. Whether Expedia will match Booking.com and start charging hotels commissions on resort fees is a much more complex issue. Part of it depends on how much resistance Booking gets from hotels to its new policy.

Some are too scared to say so publicly, but much of the travel industry would welcome a diminution of Google's vast market power. If a U.S. regulatory probe gets going against Big Tech, it is a very open question how far-reaching a remedy might be in the offing.

The momentum is certainly building for a renewed look into Google's business practices as they relate to antitrust issues. As part of that, a wide swath of travel businesses would welcome such a probe.

In settling this lawsuit, Amadeus doesn't admit to any wrongdoing or violations of antitrust law. Along with Travelport, Amadeus agreed to have its team engage in antitrust compliance training.

Google clearly places its own travel businesses front and center in its search results to the detriment of competitors. Google argues that this benefits consumers. If you buy that argument, then you also probably believe that Google always knows best.

With another multibillion dollar fine handed down, we might be getting nearer to the European Commission taking a closer look at Google's travel products.

Yelp's efforts to see tighter regulation of Google's business practices could have more success this time around than several years ago, when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission dropped the ball. European Union regulators have really cast the previous U.S. effort in a shameful light, and the Trump team may be more sympathetic than the Obama administration.

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.

The largest hotel chains and online travel agencies have deals on paid search marketing practices that effectively trim their ad spend on Google. But smaller players remain unprotected from tough marketing tactics.