
Expedia, Travelocity say Google has crossed the "creepy line" - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/expedia-travelocity-say-google-has-crossed-the-creepy-line.ars
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ZeroMinx
I just want a good web search for finding and booking flights.

Expedia and friends could work on improving their websites instead of
complaining..

Just tried Expedia now, flying London - Stockholm in December. Next screen I
could choose "specific dates" or "flexible". Clicking flexible, page reloaded,
saying "This route doesn't support that". So then I clicked "specific dates".
This threw me back to the front page, with the flight search form empty.

They won't find much sympathy from me..

~~~
lmkg
Not to defend Expedia, but if Google puts their own travel results on the
front page, improving Expedia's website wouldn't help them. It could be made
of gold-plated strippers, but no one would ever find out because they'd just
use Google's flight search, even if Google's flight search sucked. Not that
Google would make a crappy flight search (especially with ITA), but the point
is that even if other companies _did_ innovate and _did_ make a better flight
search that is theoretically better for the consumer, that still wouldn't be
able to beat Google putting their own thingy on the front SERP. Don't get me
wrong, Google's move is probably better for the consumer and Expedia does suck
and deserves to get crushed on its own merit (or lack thereof), but despite
that, "just do a better job" is not a viable option, and Expedia's complaints
that Google has an anticompetitive advantage are legitimate.

~~~
moultano
Bing is already doing this. If you want to complain, complain about vertical
integration in search engines _in general_ not Google trying to keep feature
parity with competitors. You can't prevent someone from building a better
product just because their product is popular.

~~~
takadamu
The rules are different when you have the vast majority of traffic. And you
_can_ prevent someone from trying to build a better product just because their
product is popular - ask Microsoft about its experience with the EU.

~~~
moultano
Google doesn't "have" the vast majority of traffic. The vast majority of
people _go there voluntarily when competitors are a click away_. There's a
_big_ difference. All Google has is their brand and the quality of their
product, and how long do you think their brand will last if Microsoft starts
offering a better product?

What are we going to say to Google if Google is legally prevented from
innovating, Bing isn't, and Bing wins?

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jfb
Everybody draws their own creepy line. Expedia & Travelocity draw theirs up at
the edge of their shitty, consumer-hostile business models.

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rjett
This is just a last-ditch effort by these sites to retain their only
competitive advantage: privileged access to ITA data. I don't see anything
"creepy" about this merger though...classic fear-mongering.

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fraserharris
Search engines are expanding from web searches to information searches. Since
search users were really after information in the first place, it's hard to
argue Google isn't providing better search results.

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netaustin
I have long wondered why airlines don't put considerably more pressure on
online brokers than they do, and I think this debate is missing their
perspective. They would probably agree that airfares on the first page of
search results would benefit consumers. Look at the about page on
FairSearch.org. No airlines!

~~~
ghurlman
Also no Orbitz - owned by airlines.

~~~
chrisaycock
Orbitz is a publicly traded company whose largest shareholder is Blackstone.
It is NOT owned by the airlines:

[http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Holding=Institutional+...](http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Holding=Institutional+Ownership&Symbol=OWW)

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sprout
The last time I tried to buy a ticket, I failed to find anyone among them who
recognized + as a valid character to have in an email address. I'm not sure
whether their engineers are incompetent, or just looking to spam me.

Well, I know the latter is true, but the former is up for debate. In any case,
I'm looking forward to people selling tickets that won't require me to give
them my root email address, and probably won't even want to spam me.

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nhashem
For what it's worth, Expedia actually uses its own fare search and pricing
engine, called Best Fare Search.

[http://www.tnooz.com/2010/05/10/news/if-google-reins-in-
ita-...](http://www.tnooz.com/2010/05/10/news/if-google-reins-in-ita-software-
would-expedia-ride-to-metasearch-rescue/)

If anything if Google acquires ITA and exercises tyrannical control over the
data, it could open a door for Expedia to license their data to companies like
Kayak and TripAdvisor.

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eljaco
hipmunk.com and bing.com/travel are doing an awesome job with making it easier
for all of us. Hopefully Google can do the same or (hopefully) better.

~~~
bemmu
Now that you mention Hipmunk, I just became convinced that Google will acquire
them. A market they are interested in with a small team of talented hackers
with a product with proven traction, who probably wouldn't mind working for
Google on their own project (since the lead dev already worked in a similar
arrangement before) if the price is right.

~~~
kn0thing
Bemmu, we're gonna have to pay you a commission soon ;) thanks, dude.

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goatforce5
So if ITA is so damn important to their business, why aren't Expedia,
Travelocity, et al forming a consortium to go and buy ITA?

~~~
ojbyrne
Because Google have already bought it?

~~~
borism
and because ITA itself is not important for them. Losing control of the
information that goes from ITA to consumers is why they make a fuss out of
this.

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chc
Sounds more like Expedia and Travelocity have crossed the "afraid of
competition line." There's nothing creepy about Google providing flight info.
These companies are just repeating any negative things they've heard said
about Google, and they're not even being subtle about it.

This definitely makes me like Orbitz more.

------
JoeAltmaier
Still, its a short step to Google putting their own travel results at the top
of every travel-related search. Its got to improve Google ticket-sales
conversions and hurt others.

Its a bit (a lot) anticompetitive, for sure. But the alternative is,
nationalize Google like the post office, and regulate them.

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chrisaycock
The list of companies supporting Fair Search is a bit disingenuous. There's a
lot of double-counting to make it look like more firms are against the Google
move.

Expedia owns both TripAdvisor and Hotwire.

Sabre Holdings owns Travelocity (and is a direct competitor to ITA).

Kayak owns SideStep.

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binarymax
Strange. At these companies inception they presumably had no issue shoving
'middleman' travel agents out of the picture. They are now the middleman.
Innovate or be disrupted.

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alecco
Old GDS-backed oligopolistic portals with their deals under the table deserve
this and 1000x more.

Come on Google/Ita!

------
hyperbovine
This is why we don't build our entire business on the back of a third-party
vendor.

------
yanw
_Companies like Expedia worry that the acquisition could lead Google to
present a matrix of actual fares on its search results page_

How is that not consumer positive?

~~~
mkramlich
To the extent it's not consumer positive it's like Windows and IE, vs
Netscape, et al. Windows and Word, vs other word processors, etc.

By Google integrating and promoting their own information service at the top
of search results it's very similar to Microsoft bundling, promoting and
defaulting to their own in-house equivalents to what would otherwise be third-
party apps sold by separate businesses. Is that a net win for consumers? Not
sure. It's both good and bad. But it's definitely a chilling effect for those
other vendors -- assuming they don't get a juicy buyout or licensing deal in
order to be adapted into the very thing they would otherwise fear. In this
case, an integrated travel search promoted by Google.

~~~
ceejayoz
> By Google integrating and promoting their own information service at the top
> of search results it's very similar to Microsoft bundling, promoting and
> defaulting to their own in-house equivalents to what would otherwise be
> third-party apps sold by separate businesses.

Sort of, but it's as if Microsoft is still stuck on the IE3 release and
grumping about Mozilla Firefox 4 being better. The Expedia quote basically
says "dear God, Google might actually make a usable fare finder instead of
presenting users with a useless interface designed to make it hard to find the
actual low fares we promote!"

