Google took the inner bend of a number of other suitors, when the early summer bought the ITA, a provider of solutions for organizing and presenting information on flights, as well as buying and selling of travel, seat reservation and more. After the agreement, Google will provide 700 million U.S. dollars for the ITA.
ITA compete with, among other things, Amadeus. Client list includes the airlines and websites that offer services around the search and sale of flights, including Alitalia, Continental Airlines, Lot, U.S. Airways, Aeroplan, Microsoft Bing, Kayak and Orbitz.
U.S. Justice Department recently decided to expand its first investigation of the purchase.
Google has made sure that they do not even intend to sell tickets, but that they are thinking to sell ads linked to search for travel. Several Web sites selling airline tickets, uses software from ITA. Several of them, including Continental Airlines, Kayak and Orbitz, have said that their business is not dependent on the ITA, since there are more adequate alternatives. On the other hand fear Kayak, like Microsoft, that may affect adversely the competitive situation that Google controls the ITA.
A company that competes directly with the ITA to provide search technology to airlines and travel sites, Vayant Travel Technologies, said the acquisition could be beneficial if it leads to the ITA's technology is more accessible, even to competitors. He believes it is not going any renewal of travel services online, and search services provide users with too few opportunities. As an example, he mentions some who will be traveling from New York to San Francisco, but which way do five hours in Chicago to attend a meeting. He believes that Google has over as much computing power that the company will be able to offer such search, and generally get a move on the search for flights.
Wall Street Journal has gone thoroughly to works to uncover what the Ministry really fear, by mapping what questions the Justice Department makes to companies that may become impacted by the purchase.
The questions reflect primarily the fear that Google may deny potential competitors access to the ITA. They also reflect the fear of what Google will do with the new service travel search which they will build the basis of the ITA's software.
Today travel search generate significant traffic to Google the players in the U.S. travel industry. Ministry asks how this traffic will be affected by Google's upcoming ITA-based service.
Google says they have confidence that the government will ultimately approve the purchase. The point for them is to build a better service for travel related searches, which for example, during one can search out solutions for all stages of a journey, not just the flight, but also train to downtown and the taxi to the hotel.
