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Google ‘breaks promise’ over flight search, says Expedia

September 21, 2011 | Online Travel

Google “excludes any link to online travel agencies, which are key options for comparison shopping,’’ according to testimony by Tom Barnett, Expedia’s outside counsel, prepared for delivery at a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing on Google’s business practices on the Internet.

Google, in seeking regulators’ approval for the ITA deal, said it would use ITA technology to “benefit passengers, airlines, and online travel agencies by making it easier for users to comparison shop for flights and airfares.’’ ITA, based in Cambridge, Mass., makes software that provides online flight and ticket information aggregated from the airlines.

In his testimony, Barnett says Google failed to live up to that commitment.

Google debuted its flight-search service for a select group of cities including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas. The service offers flight options and links to airlines where tickets can be purchased directly. Links to online travel agencies including Expedia, TripAdvisor LLC, and Kayak.com, are now lower in the search results, following the so-called “Google box’’ of flight information. Paid advertisements from travel companies precede the Google-generated flight information.

Get the full story at The Boston Globe

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