14 DAY TRIAL // A few months ago Google expressed its desire to acquire ITA Software, a company which provides flight data. ITA is used by many travel search websites, other search engines and even airlines. The deal is under investigation by the US Department of Justice and several travel sites have now banded together to voice their concerns.
Expedia, Kayak.com, Sabre Holdings and Farelogix, which operate several of the most popular travel sites in the US have created FairSearch.org which lobbies against approval of the acquisition.
The companies say that with Google controlling ITA Software, it will effectively take over the market which will lead to higher prices and less choice.
The site goes through a number of arguments, some of which have been made before in other Google acquisitions.
Google has responded and is countering some of the arguments in a blog post of its own. Google is also reiterating some of the arguments it has made in the past, but it does offer a direct response to some of the allegations.
"Our reason for making this acquisition is simple: ITA will help us provide better results for our users. When someone searches for 'flights from San Francisco to London,' we'd like to provide not just 'ten blue links' but exact flight times and prices as well -- just as our competitors do today," Andrew Silverman, Senior Product Manager at Google, wrote.
Google says that its acquisition will not result in less options or higher prices since ITA and Google are not competitors and Google is not in the travel search market at the moment. Tickets are sold by the airlines, ITA only manages and serves the data.
Google also says that there are alternatives to ITA, another worry raised by the travel sites. Still, at this point, ITA is the larger provider of flight data.
The company also says that it does not plan to sell tickets itself and will only provide more accurate results and information. Users will still be directed to the travel or airline sites.
Another argument made by critics is that Google could simply license its data from ITA, like everyone else does, if it simply wants to use it to improve searches.
But Google claims that it also wants to improve the system and this can only be done with direct access and control to the software.
The acquisition is still under investigation and the actions of some of the biggest travel sites on the web may weigh in rather heavily against Google. The Department of Justice has only blocked one Google deal in the past, it's attempt at partnering with Yahoo for search advertising.