The European Union has given Google two months to improve search for hotels and flights, and to explain how search results are ranked. Otherwise, the company faces sanctions. This has been announced by the European Commission (EC) and European consumer protection authorities. The practices of the world’s most popular search engine run by the company have long been investigated by antitrust authorities around the world. Some of them have already imposed heavy fines on him.
“EU consumers cannot be misled when planning holidays. We need to allow them to make informed choices based on transparent and unbiased information,” European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders told Reuters.
In response, Google said it welcomed the dialogue and assured that it worked closely with the European Commission and consumer authorities. They reserved that if his suggestions for improvement were not sufficient, they would pursue the matter further and may come up with sanctions.
The final displayed prices should include fees or taxes that can be calculated in advance. The reference prices used to calculate the promoted discounts should be clearly identifiable, said the European umbrella office together with the Belgian and Dutch consumer protection authorities. According to their findings, Google had in some cases more rights than traders than consumers.