by Kevin Coates | Apr 11, 2011 | Antitrust, Google
This article titled “Google wins approval for ITA travel search deal – but antitrust case looms” was written by Jemima Kiss, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 11th April 2011 12.36 UTC Google has been given approval for its takeover of travel search and recommendation service ITA by the US Justice Department, albeit with some fairly heavy strings attached that are designed to prevent the search giant taking advantage of its market position – and lining up a likely broader antitrust investigation. Nine months after Google announced its intended acquisition of ITA, the settlement reached with the Justice Department requires Google to maintain ITA’s software licence with rival flight search sites for five years, as well as its research and development funding. Google will also need to stablish internal firewalls to protect information about ITA’s customers and the Justice Department will be monitoring all of these requirements. Photo by HarshLight on Flickr. Some rights reserved Rival travel search firms – including Expedia, TripAdvisor and Kayak (which all some of whom use ITA’s software) – had lobbied hard in opposition to the 0m takeover. A coalition that also included consolidated airfare service Sabre Holdings and called itself Fairsearch.org seemed satisfied with the restrictions placed on Google, saying in a statement that the Justice Department’s settlement would ensure “that consumers will continue to benefit from vibrant competition and innovation in travel search”. Google had initially said it did not intend to launch a ticket sales service, though the Justice Department’s restrictions would not stop that happening. In an official blog post, Google’s senior vice president of commerce and local, Jeff Huber, said that...