Google ’causes Brits to miss out on the best holiday deals’: Skyscanner accuses rival of favoring its own flights and hotels in searches

Travel comparison site Skyscanner has accused rival Google of making Brits miss out on the best holiday deals by favoring their own flights and hotels in searches.

The website has urged ministers not to water down new laws to prevent online giants such as Google from abusing their market dominance.

The company’s Chief Legal Officer Martin Nolan said Google was “quietly driving users to its own products” and “robbed” customers of more options and better prices. He said: ‘The government should not allow the gatekeepers to pull up the drawbridge behind them. If they do, British technology and consumers will be worse off.”

The Digital Markets Act, currently being passed by parliament, aims to promote competition and rein in a small number of powerful tech companies. Under the legislation, a watchdog will be given the power to force companies to significantly change their business models. It can also issue high fines.

However, there are widespread fears that ministers are about to give in to heavy lobbying from tech giants, which would make it easier for them to challenge any ruling.

Mr Nolan warned that this would be a ‘serious mistake’ as it would encourage companies to delay any decision by dragging them through lengthy and expensive legal proceedings – thereby making the proposed regime ‘significantly less effective’. Since its launch in 2003, Skyscanner has grown into one of the largest travel comparison sites in the world, searching 80 billion prices per day.

Google launched its own flight comparison option within its search engine in 2011 and, following its success, did the same for hotels in 2019

However, Mr Nolan said the company “probably wouldn’t exist” if it had been established a decade later because a small number of “gatekeepers” would set the rules for their own benefit.

One of those companies was Google, he said, which launched its own flight comparison option within its search engine in 2011 and, following its success, did the same for hotels in 2019.

While the competition was initially “welcomed,” Nolan said Google has increasingly used its control over online searches to prioritize its own services over the competition.

He said it was as if every supermarket in a city was owned by one company, which placed its own brand products in the best places and forced customers to search at the back of the store for the “best, most popular or your favorite products” .

He added: ‘Over time and because you are short on time, you are less and less likely to have to travel to the back of the store, meaning you unknowingly miss out on more choice and higher quality products.

“If a single entity has disproportionate power to influence consumer choice, it not only hurts competitors; it deprives customers of the full range of options they deserve, better prices and the innovative solutions that come from healthy competition.”

Skyscanner’s Chief Legal Officer Martin Nolan said Google was ‘quietly driving users to its own products’ and ‘robbed’ customers of more options and better prices

Since its launch in 2003, Skyscanner has grown into one of the largest travel comparison sites in the world, searching 80 billion prices per day.

With the Digital Markets Bill due to return to Parliament on November 20, it is believed ministers will announce an amendment early next week. It is widely feared that Rishi Sunak’s government has bowed to pressure from Silicon Valley and will change the appeals system from judicial review to a merit-based system.

Writing in the Daily Mail today, Mr Nolan said: ‘This would be a serious mistake – any change to the professional standard, by encouraging these companies with their endless legal resources to challenge every CMA. [Competition and Markets Authority] decision, would significantly change the proposed regime and make it significantly less effective.

“Speed ​​is critical: small changes to ranking algorithms or app store terms and conditions can wipe out promising challengers in a matter of weeks. The [Digital Markets Watchdog, which will act as regulator under the Bill] For this to be effective, you must be able to make and enforce decisions quickly.’

A Google spokesperson said: ‘People expect Google to give them the most relevant, high-quality search results for their search query, and our testing has shown that travelers find it useful to see information such as flight prices directly in the results, alongside website links. .

‘When Google Flights appears on the search results page, it is algorithmically ranked among the other results based on user relevance.

‘Ultimately, providing more relevant search results creates more choice and competition, and generates billions of free visits to sites on the internet every day.’