In a move to address concerns raised by competitors, Google has proposed significant changes to the way price comparison websites like Booking.com and Airbnb appear in search results across Europe. According to a report by The Information, these changes aim to align with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which seeks to prevent tech giants like Google from favouring their own services over those of rivals.
What is Digital Markets Act?
The DMA mandates that platforms such as Google refrain from giving preferential treatment to their own products. Basically, no partiality. In response to complaints from rival services, Google outlined plans to introduce more balanced and equally visible formats for third-party comparison sites. The company is also testing the removal of its hotel map feature in select countries, including Germany, Belgium, and Estonia. This move is seen as an effort to placate critics who have demanded a ban on Google’s more advanced features, which they argue provide an unfair advantage.
“The Digital Markets Act (DMA) requires substantial changes to the services Google can provide in Europe. Over the past year, we have made many changes to comply, including significantly redesigning certain features and completely removing others in Europe,” Google wrote in its blog adding that this includes more than 20 modifications to Google Search like the introduction of dedicated units and formats to boost the prominence of comparison sites for free in categories like flights, hotels, and shopping, among others.
“We have also removed useful features from the search results page, like features that show flight information, and reduced functionality for some of our clickable maps – changes that have negatively impacted the experience of our European users. While many of these changes have benefited large online travel aggregators and comparison sites, there’s a different set of businesses that are unfortunately losing traffic as a result: it’s now harder for airlines, hotel operators, and small retailers to reach customers. They have reported that free direct booking clicks are down as much as 30% since we implemented our original changes.”
Google’s proposed changes are part of its strategy to address the increasing scrutiny over its market dominance. In the United States, the company is already facing legal challenges related to its alleged search monopoly. A recent US court ruling declared that Google operates an illegal monopoly in search, with the Department of Justice calling for drastic measures, including the potential divestment of its Chrome browser, to restore competition. Additionally, earlier this year, Yelp filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the company of using its dominance in search to undermine competitors in the local search market.
As Google navigates these regulatory hurdles, the company’s efforts to comply with the Digital Markets Act are part of its broader strategy to avoid further legal repercussions in Europe.
Follow FE Tech Bytes on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook
\
