Google given two months to reform flight and hotel search results in EU

The European Union has given Google two months to change the way it presents search results for hotels and flights and to explain to authorities how it ranks them.

On Monday, the European Commission and EU consumer protection authorities targeted Google Flights and Google Hotels for not providing enough detail on flight and lodging prices, Reuters has reported.

For example, the EU authorities said that prices should include fees and taxes that are calculated in advance. It also added that reference prices used to calculate promotional discounts should be clearly identifiable by the consumer. If Google doesn't comply, it could face sanctions, the authorities said.

"EU consumers cannot be misled when using search engines to plan their holidays. We need to empower consumers to make their choices based on transparent and unbiased information," said Didier Reynders, the EU's Justice Commissioner.

Additionally, the EU agencies told Google that it must revise the standard terms of its Google Store because, in some cases, traders seemingly have more rights than consumers.

"We welcome this dialogue and are working closely with consumer protection agencies and the European Commission to see how we can make improvements that will be good for our users and provide even more transparency," Google said in a statement.

The Mountain View search giant has seen increased scrutiny from antitrust regulators in recent years. Google was slapped with an antitrust lawsuit from state attorneys general for its Google Play Store management. It was also fined nearly $600 million for non-compliance with competition regulations in France.

The U.S. Justice Department also levied a massive antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, claiming that it uses it market power to snuff out competition.

10 Comments

jimh2 8 Years · 670 comments

About 3 years ago

It’s a free service. How can someone regulate free. If one does not like it then look at all the individual websites to find the best price.

This is an example of wanting something better than free for free

aaargh! 16 Years · 20 comments

jimh2 said:

It’s a free service. (…)
This is an example of wanting something better than free for free

This is an example of how deceptive business practices won’t fly in Europe. In the EU you are required to show the actual price of a product, including taxes, required fees, etc. If you advertise a product you just have to do it with the actual amount the customer has to pay, not some made up lower price that doesn’t reflect reality.

Alex_V 6 Years · 269 comments

jimh2 said:

It’s a free service. How can someone regulate free. If one does not like it then look at all the individual websites to find the best price.
This is an example of wanting something better than free for free

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Google search is also “free” to me. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be abused by Google, nor does it mean that Google won’t unfairly exploit its monopoly. That’s why regulators take an interest in the matter.

waveparticle 3 Years · 1497 comments

jimh2 said:

It’s a free service. How can someone regulate free. If one does not like it then look at all the individual websites to find the best price.
This is an example of wanting something better than free for free

This is an old tired argument. Advertisement is also free, right? In other words, the websites are essentially advertisements.

davidw 17 Years · 2119 comments

aaargh! said:

jimh2 said:

It’s a free service. (…)
This is an example of wanting something better than free for free

This is an example of how deceptive business practices won’t fly in Europe. In the EU you are required to show the actual price of a product, including taxes, required fees, etc. If you advertise a product you just have to do it with the actual amount the customer has to pay, not some made up lower price that doesn’t reflect reality.

The US introduced a law that will do the same. AFAIK, it hasn't passed yet.

https://hotellaw.jmbm.com/federal-legislation-introduced-making-hotel-resort-fees-and-other-mandatory-charges-illegal.html

But let me ask you this, if in the EU, hotels are required by law to show the actual cost of the room per night, including all taxes and mandatory fees, then why is it up to Google to enforce that law? All Google search is doing is going by the price that hotels are advertising. If hotels are not advertising their room rates as required by EU laws, shouldn't there be some other commission in the EU that see to it that hotels are obeying the laws? Why does the EU have to force Google to enforce EU laws, under the threat of being fined, if hotels that aren't complying with the law concerning advertising room rate, ends up being listed high on a Google search result? Google is not the one advertising the room rates of the hotels, in their search result. If all the hotels were complying with the law, then a Google search of ...... "cheapest hotels in what-ever EU city" ...... would yield a result that shouldn't be deceptive to consumers. Unless Google is listing paid search results higher on the list, even though they might not be cheaper than those that didn't pay Google.

It's different in the US as there is not yet a law barring hotels from not including the "resort fee", when advertising their room rate. Even if the "resort fee" is mandatory. So it's buyers beware. So maybe here, Google has some responsibility to consumers, to see that their search results for ..... "cheapest hotels"....., are comparing apples to apples. Just like how on eBay, I can better compare the price of an item from different auctions, with a search filter using ....... "price + S&H, lowest first".