Google has two months to improve hotel and flight search results

The European Fee and EU shopper authorities sanctioned Alphabet Inc. company Google to improve hotel, flight search results. A timeline of two months is given by the authorities on Monday.

Google is the largest search engine in the world. A fair share of its revenue comes from ads and companies using their algorithm to rank higher in search results. These ranking takes in various factors for crawlers to use them properly. As a result, not only, the boosted posts show up, also the free ones that are utilised well for search engine come above too. It is a regular service. As billions use search engines every day, a ranking result will do more business accordingly. But companies of hotel and flight management have a different view. And they want things to change in the sector. So, the search engine platform has two months to improve the search result. They would also have to explain how these rankings work to the commission and consumer authorities.

Reuters on July 26th published on the topic and it said “The latest grievance centres on the prices on its services Google Flights and Google Hotels.”

The antitrust enforcers are not showing any more kindness towards similar matters where business is becoming a monopoly. Even free search results don’t come above on top, Google’s own services claim that place sometimes. Which makes sense because it is also a business.

Antitrust enforcers want to achieve only the best practices that would benefit customers and the overall system. We believe this would certainly come towards a few sets of rules to change. Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders of EU said: “EU customers can’t be misled when utilising engines like google plan on their holidays.” In addition, “We have empowered customers to make their selections based mostly on clear and unbiased info.”

The grievance also centres on Google Flights and Google Hotels services pricing. Among flight bookings and hotel bookings, we know there can be hidden charges or fees along with offers and discounts. Final pricing should make sense to the customer and it should be clearly visible how much they need to pay and why is pricing the way it is. Taxation and fees should be clearly identifiable. Discounts and offers need to be referenced and easily calculable on the spot. The EU executive and national consumer watchdog are pushing the motive further. Belgian Directorate-General for Economic Inspection and Dutch Agency stated the facts clearly.

A lot of standards and procedures are involved in this matter. So, agencies told Google to revise the terms. Standard terms seem to favour the customers less in terms of financial and business log. Google Store should re-do these standard procedures for customer's sake. The agencies are currently on hold with the idea that their wish would be implemented. If not, they will take further measures and that can impose sanctions along the way. So, the proposals made by Google should make sense.

In a statement by Google. “We welcome this dialogue and are working closely with consumer protection agencies and the European Commission.” Google always cares for their customers and this time it will not be different according to them. A good consumer policy and transparency are going to be implemented within the coming days.

Last year we saw google in a pressurised environment from the US regulator. Justice Department filed its antitrust laws in October. Of course, there is going to be lots of issues for a giant company like Google as many countries and states may have a difference in regulations and ruleset. Surely these changes of rules are going to need time because there are other policies and businesses involved in the matter. Google seems to be taking the suggestions and rules warmly.