Expedia has ended its COVID vaccine mandate, for both employees and visitors to its offices.
Like many companies, Expedia had a vaccine requirement for those who were visiting or working in the office. As the pandemic has started to wind down, the company has ended the mandate.
According to GeekWire, Michael Davis Velasco, chief people, inclusion & diversity officer, notified employees via email.
“We are moving from a pandemic to an endemic phase and are learning to live with the virus,” Velasco wrote. “We are in a different phase of the virus than when we launched the policy. Vaccines, boosters, and treatment options are now widely available and helping to protect people from serious illness.”
“You’ve got to bail everyone out,” says Expedia and IAC Chairman Barry Diller. “This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later.”
Barry Diller, media mogul and Chairman of IAC and Expedia, says that every business in the United States must be bailed out in an interview on CNBC:
You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out
What we’re doing at Expedia is using the time to do a lot of the things that we were not able to do when we were running a hundred miles an hour to keep up with our growth. You can think of it as a small business writ large. And then one day the door closes. And if you’ve got a small business with nobody coming in you have no revenue. Well, travel-related companies have no revenue. Expedia, like many large travel companies, has a very very large cost base so we haven’t yet dealt with that specifically. The real planning inside the company is to come out of this stronger than when we went into it.
The bailouts of the airlines are necessary. Full stop. You’ve got to bail everyone out. This is like when you’re picking losers and winners. Everybody is in the same position which is the world stopped for commerce. You see this when you drive down streets and you see big cities and small cities and you see nothing is open. They’re ghost towns. The damage that is being done every day is enormous. Everybody needs to be bailed out of this one-time thing and we’ll worry about paying the bills later.
What has to happen is the fear has to decline
What has to happen is the fear has to decline. The fear of associating with other people. There are plenty of friends of mine who say I’m not going to go to the theater or I’m not going to do this because I’m afraid. Actually, now people are saying, even though you’ve been isolating for three weeks you can’t come over to my house, which is kind of nuts. Fear is the next thing that’s going to thaw. Until that happens, whether you test people on the way in or whatever you do, at some point everybody’s going to have to be comfortable being a foot away from other people. If that fundamentally changes then a huge amount of our infrastructure disappears, which I don’t think will happen.
You kind of have to get over it (the fear). You go into a theater and you’re sitting literally within inches of people, you go in thinking that no one is going come in with enormous toxicity. No one is going to come in who has got some terrible communicable disease and sneeze on you. You kind of just trust in that. We’re all too frightened right now. We’re gonna have to get over it or everything will change.
One Way Or the Other This Is Going To Be Over or We’re Over
When we see the damage that is being done everywhere we’ll really see in the second quarter (what’s happening). How can you get fair value? I absolutely believe that in a year or two from now this will be over. One way or the other this is going to be over or we’re over. But how can you value that today? I don’t think you can do it?
II think the streaming will be impacted by (the crisis) also. You go a few more months and while people say (that Netflix) and other subscriptions to entertainment) will be the last things they’ll cut because people feel they desperately need it to just get through the day but that is eventually going to take its toll. People truly will not have the discretionary income to afford it.
Cornoavirus Doesn’t Change the Dynamics of Anything
But it doesn’t change the dynamics of anything. You’ve got the competitors. Streaming has taken over the world. Hollywood is irrelevant. The only companies that have a true path, an absolute clear business model path forward, have nothing to do with the entertainment business. Amazon and Netflix. Everybody else, good luck to them. They may be able to build subscription services that may be profitable but that world has changed forever. I think this pandemic has nothing to do with it other than earnings that are going to be much less for a while.
Of course, there are opportunities (to invest in) you just have to have a very long view or sure-footed look at things as not only they are but as you think they will be. We’re looking at some very large potential acquisitions for IAC. This is the environment where if you are acquisitive you’re going to do the thing that for many years everybody’s asked for. Oh my God, everything’s over-inflated and prices are crazy. You can’t buy things for this or that without these new premiums. Well, you know what, that’s all gone. If you’ve got capital what could be a better time than to exploit what is a terrible downfall for many companies.
You’ve Got To Bail Everyone Out, Says Barry Diller
Expedia and IAC Chairman Barry Diller said that the economic and business landscape caused by the coronavirus and the political actions to fight it have been cataclysmic. Diller does not see a return to normal anytime soon. He believes that people will first have get over being scared and that won’t be easy.
Barry Diller, Chairman of Expedia and IAC discusses our current “cataclysmic landscape in an interview on CNBC:
I See the Landscape As Cataclysmic
I see the landscape as cataclysmic,” says Diller. “We’re in something that it’s very hard to be objective about because we’re in the eye of it and we’re inside of it. We can’t really see it for what it is. Everybody says the same thing there’s been nothing like it before and while we know some things we really know nothing. We know nothing about what happened and when we’re going to get out of it. “
What will we be doing and will our habits change? Will this result in some really profound difference in people’s lives in the future? So I see it as everybody is scared. The fact that we have so much media and so much information with all it telling us that we’ve got to be quite scared about cohabitating with anyone. That ain’t good.
A Quick Return To Normalcy Will Not Happen
No, (I don’t believe that we will go back to normal on the other side of this as we did after 9/11). What I said then was that if there’s life there’s travel. I still do believe that but this is not going to be what happened then which was a very very quick return to normalcy. That is not going to happen. At best, we’ll have kind of a rolling way out.
As far as travel is concerned, while I’m absolutely optimistic that it will happen at some point, I don’t think it will be soon. It will probably be September, October, November, or December to really get life back. And in order to travel, you have got to have that. So they’re totally different conditions. This is not analogous. I don’t think this is analogous to anything and is certainly not analogous to 9/11 and to the financial crisis in 2008.
“It’s the tale of two cities for me.,” says IAC and Expedia Chairman Barry Diller in a CNBC interview. “On one hand, I have IAC see which is advertising, home services, and dating. Of course, the crisis hurts some but it’s stable. IAC is very well-capitalized. So I’ve got all these hungry players in my company who want to go out and buy things and are very aggressive and are thinking of this opportunity. “
“While on the other hand, I have Expedia, which has no revenue,” says Diller. “It’s a bit of a weird kind of constant imbalance. But as far as advertising is concerned at Expedia, for instance, we spend $5 billion a year in advertising. We won’t spend $1 billion dollars in advertising probably this year. You just rip that across everything and there you are.”
Diller says that the travel industry is a proxy. “Yes, there are some basic things that are worthwhile to advertise during this period. But we haven’t seen anything economically this quarter. Why anybody is poring over these first-quarter numbers is clueless to me. How the market can go up in this atmosphere is insane. But as you get into the second quarter you’re going to see advertising (cuts) across the boards. Why would it sustain?”
Expedia Cuts Ad Spend From $5 Billion To $1 Billion
Google Cloud and Sabre announced a 10-year partnership that will see Sabre move to Google Cloud and the two companies work “to build the future of travel,” according to a press release.
Sabre is a travel company that was originally created by American Airlines in 1960. In 1996, Sabre launched Travelocity before ultimately selling it to Expedia in 2015, giving the company an established track record of disrupting the travel industry.
The goal of the 10-year Google Cloud deal is “to improve operational agility while developing new services and creating a new marketplace for its airline, hospitality and travel agency customers.” This will include using Google Cloud’s data analytics “to enhance the capabilities of current and future products,” as well as “create and optimize travel options.”
Beyond improving Sabre’s existing business, however, the deal is also about further innovation in the travel industry.
“We are thrilled to work with Sabre through this important initiative to bring together the strengths of both our companies and accelerate innovation in the travel industry,” said Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO. “We believe our partnership will deliver more personalized experiences for travelers, saving time and providing greater convenience that will ultimately raise the standard for the travel industry overall.”
Those statements were echoed by Sabre CEO Sean Menke:
“Today, we embark on a new transformational journey with Google. As our preferred cloud provider and broader strategic partner, Google Cloud will help to accelerate our digital transformation and ability to create a new marketplace and critical products and systems focused on our customer needs for decades to come.”
Google has been making inroads in the travel industry for some time, and has drawn a fair amount of criticism and regulatory scrutiny. Some companies, such as Yelp and Expedia, have accused the search giant—that they depend on for their business—of not always playing fair. Companies like that will no doubt view this partnership with a great deal of concern.
“We sit on reams of data with 750 million visits to Expedia Group properties every single month,” says Expedia CEO Mark Okerstrom. “That just gives us an incredible amount of understanding around what travelers are looking for, how we can tailor our search results, how we can tailor the recommendations we give, the advertising that we show, and that’s just the beginning. We’re also using AI to help inform some of our lodging partners with pricing tactics, to help them price more effectively both in the alternative accommodation space and in the traditional lodging space.”
Mark Okerstrom, CEO of Expedia, discusses how the online travel giant is using data and AI to power its pricing tactics in an interview on Bloomberg Technology:
We’ve Always Been At the Forefront of Travel
We’ve always been at the forefront of travel. We’ve been at this for 20 years. The one thing that has been consistent for 20 years yeah is this is an incredibly competitive industry. Despite all of the competitive forces that have acted on us, Expedia last year did a $100 billion dollars of bookings, multiples of the size of Airbnb and many of these players out there. We’ve got thousands and thousands of the top engineers and data scientists and product minds in the world focused on travel. That’s how we stay ahead.
VRBO has been around for a very long time. If you go back in time, people used to talk about getting a VRBO for the weekend. It was the noun. s we went through and did a ton of research here in the US and also internationally about all of the different names we could call the new VRBO, VRBO was the one that actually resonated the most. So we decided to put all of our effort behind that brand. We’re pretty excited about rolling out globally in the coming years.
M&A is always part of our playbook, so I would never say never (regarding more acquisitions). But we’re pretty happy with what we’ve got in alternative accommodations and we’re pretty excited about putting all our efforts behind VRBO.
Global Travel Industry Generally Looks Pretty Healthy
So far so good (regarding tariff impacts). It looks like a healthy travel environment to us. Recent research done by Expedia here in the US is 85 percent of people are planning on taking a trip this summer and 15 percent were for budget constraints. This is broadly consistent with what we’ve seen. Americans are traveling. The global travel industry generally looks pretty healthy. We’re fortunate that we are a global business.
In good times and bad times we definitely see shifts in travel patterns but people often just take their trips. It’s like the last thing they cut. Maybe they’ll take a trip a little bit closer to home, they won’t take that trip overseas, but they travel. If you look at our results over the 2008-2009 period, for example, those were some of our strongest years.
Expedia Pricing Tactics Powered By AI and Reams of Data
We sit on reams of data with 750 million visits to Expedia Group properties every single month. That just gives us an incredible amount of understanding around what travelers are looking for, how we can tailor our search results, how we can tailor the recommendations we give, the advertising that we show, and that’s just the beginning. We’re also using AI to help inform some of our lodging partners with pricing tactics, to help them price more effectively both in the alternative accommodation space and in the traditional lodging space. Honestly, we’re just getting started.
We’ve been doing the one-stop shop before it was cool. We’ve been doing it for 20 years. Not only are we about search but we’re also about booking and taking care of people during the trip. No one else can do it.
Expedia Pricing Tactics Powered By AI and Reams of Data, Says CEO Mark Okerstrom
Internet pioneer Barry Diller says that the Internet revolution is still really young. He also says that this truly radical revolution is right now a very troubled revolution.
Barry Diller, Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia, Inc., recently reflected on the relative youthfulness of the Internet and areas which are still ripe for entrepreneurs. IAC owns popular dating platforms such as Tinder and Match.
Below are Barry Diller’s comments made during an interview on Fox Business which you can watch in its entirety below:
The Internet Revolution is Still Really Young
The growth is just part of the revolution. People forget that the internet revolution is still really young, only 22 or 23 years. It took 10-15 years just to get up enough bandwidth to actually have rich media being served through it. We are really at the very earliest stage of this.
Expedia is one of the first companies to kind of colonize travel for the internet 20 years ago. That’s a world where the colonization of all these businesses is just now coming on ‘full line’ where you can do almost everything and almost everything more through digital platforms. So the growth is everywhere.
Fintech is Just Now Going Mainstream
Financial technology, Fintech, is just now really getting into very much mainstream. Big companies are being built for this. For us, it’s home services. Being able to the same thing you do when you want a car, being taken someplace rather than drive yourself, where you have an app and with Uber. Home service, which has been one of the most difficult areas to tame.
It’s the most, essentially, local of everything. It’s where your water heater breaks, your air conditioning doesn’t work, just take it on the emergency or quick service side, and you want help. Now there is an app in Angie Home Services in Home Advisor where literally you do the same thing. You say I need a plumber and it will show you plumbers hovering around, Uberish like service providers, where you will be able to do the full-service of that transaction on your mobile device because it’s there and it’s ready for you.
It’s Really a Platform
That is just now at it’s very earliest stages. It’s just one example where the growth runway is infinite. It’s really a platform. The platform takes consumers over here who have needs and service providers over here who provide services and through technology, it makes a perfect match or at least a good match.
That’s what all of those things are, they are platforms. Once you have a platform then when you say will others be created, well certainly there will be other platforms created, but there won’t be that many because the network effects have to come into play.
Tinder is Now Moving on the Same Track as Match
We’ve been involved in Match almost 20 years I think. We bought Match quite early in the cycle. We found that… you know what, that’s a very good idea. We found this little company in Texas called Match.com which we bought. The thing is when you say it’s just now becoming where people get married, we had over a million marriages ten years ago come from Match.com.
Then the technology moved forward and you have Tinder, which is actually younger in terms of people. People on Match were fairly serious, yes they wanted to date and see what happened on a little one-time date, but they also really wanted relationships. Tinder got younger and earlier stage of pre-relationship, one-time dating or one-time whatever. But now, it is moving on the same track as Match did where real relationships are coming out of Tinder. It’s an alternative to the historic pattern of going to bars or being fixed up. This actually does bring technology into the mix.
This is a Truly Radical Revolution
When you are inside of a revolution, which I was just lucky enough in timing to get into in a very early stage, you don’t realize the effects of what is happening around you. This is a truly radical revolution. Right now it is a very troubled revolution which happens at very early stages.
Part 1 of Barry Diller interview on the Internet Revolution:
Part 2 of Barry Diller interview on the Internet Revolution:
Hopper, an AI-driven prediction travel app that competes with Priceline and Expedia, is somewhat under the radar but actually has been around for over 3 years and has over 30 million users. Hopper founder and CEO Frederic Lalonde says that Hopper is fundamentally different because the app sees into the future.
“We’re fundamentally different because the Hopper app sees into the future. We were built on the premise of big data so we collect billions, actually 750 billion prices every month, and we track airfare predictively.”
Frederic Lalonde, CEO of Hopper, talks about Hopper and how it is fundamentally different than Priceline and Expedia in a recent interview.
New Round of Fundraising For International Growth
This round of fundraising is all about international growth for us. The Hopper app has been around for about three and a half years and on and off and it’s the number one travel app in the US. We have over 30 million users, but what’s really changed in the course of the last year is our pickup outside of North America.
There are markets like Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Latin America where we’ve seen extraordinary growth, upwards of 300 percent year-over-year, because we’ve been adding inventory to the app. This latest funding puts us in a position to continue that growth and become the worldwide leader in mobile travel.
The Hopper App Sees Into the Future and Predicts Prices
We compete directly against anybody who sells travel online, that’s Priceline and Expedia, and those companies own all the brands that you’re using. We’re fundamentally different because the Hopper app sees into the future. We were built on the premise of big data so we collect billions, actually 750 billion prices every month, and we track airfare predictively. If a user is looking to go from New York to London, Hopper up to a year in advance will tell you the best day in the future to buy your airfare. we also do the same thing for hotels and we’re expanding.
We’ve been doing this for over a decade and we have proprietary algorithms that also operate. Fundamentally, Hopper is part of a new generation of commerce marketplaces that are deeply built on data and AI. You can see by the success of the platform that it’s different.
Hopper is Mobile Only
The other thing that makes us totally different is the fact that we’re only an app. We’re mobile only and the user experience is totally different because you’re letting the app do all of the heavy lifting for you. You’re saying when you want to travel and you can even leave that open and where you want to go and the app continuously tracks and shops all of these prices for you and you receive push notifications. For scale, we’ve sent about 2 billion push notifications to our users over the last two years.
The other things that we compete against are websites where you have to do all the work yourself. What we’ve seen because we track all the data is when we as human beings do this we end up on average paying 5 percent more than we would have if we bought the first price that we’ve seen.
Some people will score some deals, but on average we do much worse because we’re being tracked by cookies and the airline companies and the websites know that we’re doing this at predictable hours. The Hopper model does this for you and the outcomes are actually much better.
It appeared last month that Expedia had been penalized by Google for its linking practices. Searchmetrics data showed a 25% drop in Google search visibility.
Google and Expedia have both remained silent on the issues, but NenadSEO had blogged about what appeared to be Expedia creating a “huge amount” of paid articles with “fluff content” and “overly optimized anchor keywords”.
Expedia released its quarterly and full year earnings on Thursday, and as Danny Sullivan points out, the hit hasn’t affected the company’s bottom line just yet, but it did come in the first quarter, so next earnings report should be more telling.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was asked about it on the earnings call, and said (via Sullivan):
Yes, as far as Google goes, look, listen, we’re not going to comment on speculative articles about our Google trends. What I’ll tell you in general is that our traffic from Google, both on a paid and an organic basis, continues to increase on a year-on-year basis. We look at all of our practices in Google, our SEM practices. We make sure that the content on from our side is great, our SEO practices, et cetera, and we’re constantly auditing them and making sure that our practices are industry-leading. So really, that’s the only comment I’ll make. Google’s a big partner. We continue to grow with them. And from a long-term basis, we look to continue to grow with them going forward.
Google’s a “big partner,” but Expedia is also part of the FairSearch coalition, fighting to see more regulation of search results come Google’s way. In this case, it appears that Google is the one regulating Expedia’s search results.
Google has been on a warpath against unnatural links. This week, head of webspam Matt Cutts announced Google has taken out yet another link network with more to come.
It looks like Google has penalized travel site Expedia, one its competitors, which is part of the FairSearch Coalition, which regularly lobbies for antitrust action to be taken against the search giant.
Data from SearchMetrics (via Search Engine Land) shows a 25% drop in Google search visibility for the site, and it has taken a hit on major keywords like: hotels, vacation, airline tickets, etc.
Popular belief is that the site was likely hit with an unnatural link penalty. Last month, some of the site’s link tactics drew some negative attention in the SEO industry, and it looks like they may have caught up with the site.
“What Expedia creates is the huge amount of paid articles filled with fluff content aaaaand…what else?” wrote NenadSEO. “Overly Optimized Anchor Keywords. Yes, that’s what Expedia is doing. They are using Link Schemes to hit the top spots in theSERPs– and they are getting away with this. Nobody is going to punish them.”
Or maybe they did.
Google has been cracking down on “link schemes more than ever in recent months”. I’m sure you recall the big Rap Genius story from a couple weeks ago. That site didn’t stay in the penalty box very long, and seems unlikely that Expedia will either, but I guess we’ll see.
Expedia still ranks for a branded search, which is already better than Rap Genius was doing when it was penalized.
Earlier I mentioned the FairSearch thing. Interestingly, Expedia has been accused of breaking antitrust laws in the past itself.
“Next year we’re not doing a Christmas tree or gifts at all! We’re all just going to go to Hawaii!”
Each year since my youth my mom has hollered this through a straitjacket of stringed lights as if it was a threat. Meanwhile, my siblings and I kept waiting with bated breath for her to make good on delivering this punishment in paradise. After almost three decades, I’m still waiting – but you don’t have to.
You don’t have to wait for another year to go by either.
In fact, if that holiday malaise is setting in as you sip your Starbucks and stroke the screen of your smartphone, keep in mind that holiday travel deals are still in progress – and just a tap away thanks to innovations introduced by online travel businesses. A few CEOs of the top OTAs (online travel agencies) sat down with USA recently and explained how staying ahead of their competition means simultaneously simplifying your booking process and saving you money:
We’ve got a real nice deal right here, right under the mistletoe. What are you waiting for? http://t.co/360anWtzHd
CEO of Priceline.com North America, Christopher Soder said, “Mobile has grown very fast. One example for using your phone will allow you to search for hotels near you. A lot of our mobile bookers book for check-in that night within a mile of their location. On our iPad app you can define the neighborhood by just drawing on the map and saying, ‘Show me hotels in this area.’”
Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Expedia) also spoke about applications, “An interesting new feature on the Expedia app is itinerary sharing. If I share my itinerary with you, it will show up on your Expedia app, and you will get updates on gate changes, arrival time, etc. It is updated live.”
Regarding travel deals, he added, “We negotiate with hoteliers for same-day and last-minute bookings on the mobile app. They’re sometimes 50% off.”
Barney Hartford (CEO of Orbitz Worldwide) agreed, “The use of mobile for same-day bookings is huge,” adding, “Orbitz Inside Deals has killer deals on properties that are only available for 72 hours, and we will send some of our members a heads-up about them before they go on the website. We also have destinations where we offer a promo code that is good just for 24 or 48 hours.”
Between ease of access and discounts, travel agencies are making a getaway sound awfully alluring. So, if a holiday at home is falling short of earth shattering this year – why not salvage what’s left of your leave, hop on a plane (or cruise ship), and go Instagram some island memories?
After all, nobody’s dreaming of a trite Christmas.
Expedia and Travelocity announced a strategic partnership, which will see Expedia powering Travelocity’s platforms, and giving the site access to its own services. Travelocity will still continue to market its own brand, and will remained owned by Sabre Holdings and independent of Expedia.
“Over the years, Travelocity has become one of the most recognized travel brands in the US and Canada. Going forward, this agreement will enable Travelocity to focus on further building its brand while at the same time providing consumers with an enhanced suite of travel products and services,” said Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “This announcement stands as a true testament to the advanced capabilities that our significant technology investments over the past several years enabled us to build. We believe volume generated through the agreement will add further scale to Expedia’s global supply and customer service capabilities.”
“Since launching in 1996, Travelocity has grown from a pioneering Internet start-up to one of the leading brands in travel,” said Travelocity President and CEO Carl Sparks. “In staying true to our core values of meeting the needs of both consumers and travel suppliers, we have elected to evolve and strengthen our business model in the US and Canada by working with Expedia, Inc. to offer a top-notch booking platform and a more robust supply of travel options, allowing us to focus increased resources on building our competitive strengths in marketing and retailing.”
Expedia, along with a number of other companies, including Orbitz, Travelocity, Sabre Holdings Corp., Marriott International, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, and Hilton Worldwide, have been named in a federal lawsuit in California for conspiring to fix hotel room prices, to fend off smaller online retailers selling rooms at lower prices, Reuters reports.
Plaintiffs Nikita Turik and Eric Balk are reportedly seeking class action status, alleging that the defendants violated state antitrust laws with “agreements whereby hotel operators ceased doing business with online retailers who sold rooms below certain prices.”
For a company like Expedia, this is particularly ironic, considering that it’s part of the FairSearch Coalition, an organization made up of travel sites put together to “promote economic growth, innovation and choice across the Internet ecosystem by fostering and defending competition in online and mobile search,” as the coalition puts it.
The coalition first came together when Google announced its intent to acquire ITA Software. It sought for the acquisition to be blocked by regulators, but that didn’t happen. Ever since, the organization has been vocally opposing Google’s business practices at nearly every turn.
For example, last month, FairSearch offered a statement saying, “The FairSearch coalition would welcome a rapid, substantive and legally enforceable change to Google’s business practices that steer users to its own products and away from others,” as Google was dealing with the European Commission.
Expedia has not commented on the suit. We’ve reached out to FairSearch for comment. We’ll update if we receive one.
Update: FairSearch is indicating that it will not comment on this.
A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews, “Consumers benefit from clear labeling in search results, and we have always clearly disclosed which links are paid advertisements. That said, not all search engines clearly disclose paid results, so we would support a fresh look by the FTC at search labeling and transparency practices.”
Though Google’s competitors are often eager to see scrutiny brought to Google, it’s not as clear if some of these same competitors are so eager to see such scrutiny brought to the entire industry.
When asked if they would support such a review from the FTC, Expedia and Orbitz, for example, did not return our request for comment. Microsoft, on the other hand, did return our request for comment, by saying, “No Comment.”
Sullivan had made points about Google not disclosing sponsored results on some of its vertical engines, even if such results came with the “sponsored” label, when appearing on Google’s main search product. For example, one might use Google’s Hotel Finder, but not necessarily know when a result was paid for. Sullivan also made the suggestion that there is an issue regarding device manufacturers who have accepted money from Google to select the search engine as its default, and how they should disclose this to customers.
As he pointed out in his letter to the FTC, there are plenty of similar issues among Google’s competitors.
I head a small law firm in Washington, D.C., where I advise technology companies, including Google, on public policy issues. As an advocate for open Internet rules, I’ve spent many years working on network neutrality issues, and I also took part in the SOPA and PIPA debates, as one of the opponents of unfocused copyright laws.
While advising Google on the FTC’s antitrust investigation, I have noticed an odd pattern: the companies complaining about Google’s actions all commit the same exact actions they complain about. If Google’s actions harm consumers, then so do its competitors. The competitors complain about some things that are not even a problem (such as using snippets of text in a search result) and other things that would be a problem if Google or any other company engaged in them (including deceiving users by mislabeling ads and search results).
Both Ammori and Sullivan talked about NexTag, who specifically made a point to call out Google in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, indicating that the company doesn’t disclose paid listings itself.
The point is, this is an industry-wide issue, and one that is not unique to Google, despite Google’s dominant market share, which already brings so much scrutiny to the search giant.
Just today, Google confirmed that it has offered a proposal to settle antitrust concerns from the European Commission. While we don’t know the details of the proposal yet, one has to wonder if Google is having to make changes to features that its competitors will continue to enjoy.
The EU is expected to make a decision on how to proceed in an antitrust investigation of Google after Easter. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said as much earlier this week.
That leaves time for more to complain about Google try to make their cases and influence the decision.
Reuters reports that Expedia has now filed a formal complaint against Google with the EU. The report quotes Expedia SVP of Government Affairs, Brent Thompson: “The complaint offers evidence of how Google’s conduct harms not only competition, but consumers…Expedia believes that strong action is needed by the European Commission to restore a fair and competitive marketplace in online search that respects consumers’ rights.”
A complaint from Expedia comes as no surprise. The company has been part of the FairSearch coalition, made up of Google competitors (including Microsoft), since its inception. FairSearch has aimed to impede Google all the while, beginning with the call to block Google’s Acquisition of ITA Software. The acquisition was not blocked. FairSearch recently expanded its presence in Europe.
Planning a trip seams fun in theory but I just never seem to get around to doing it. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone else just took care of it? Yes, It’s called a travel agent and they’re too expensive for me. Thankfully there is always someone else willing to my work, at least in this regard. Expedia is making deals, exclusive to your area, that someone else already researched and found the best price on. Basically they are live and emerging deals, available to book for a twelve hour window, then they are gone.
“In a sense, the millions of people who come to Expedia® are now serving as your own personal travel agent, helping you find the best and most popular deals from your home city,” said Joe Megibow, vice president and general manager, Expedia.com. “So many customers travel with Expedia every month that it puts us in a great position to deliver this type of service to our customers. With Last-Minute Deals, you can get the best deals available by letting everyone else do your research for you.”
The deals are part of a new program by Expedia titled ASAP (A Sudden Amazing Price).
Daily deals site Groupon has just announced a partnership with online travel company Expedia to bring deals to travel. The service will be called “Groupon Getaways” and will start in the U.S. and Canada with plans to expand to other countries in the near future.
Apparently, the travel deals will work the same way as Groupon daily deals. Customers will have a limited amount of time to buy certain deals for future use. No word on whether or not there will be the same kind of buyer minimums for activation. According to Expedia, “discounts will be significant, typically around 50 percent off retail rates found at other online travel sites.” This sounds consistent with the type of discounts currently offered by Groupon.
Although the deals won’t start rolling in until late June, customers can sign up to be on the email mailing list, just like with Groupon’s regular daily deals. It looks like it is an entirely separate email list from the standard deals.
According to Tech Crunch, the deals will most likely be regional, instead of super specific and local. They also say that Groupon was also in talks with Priceline and Travelocity before making the final deal with Expedia.
Expedia announced that it’s separating from TripAdvisor to form two seaprate companies. This has already been approved by the Board of Directors. Both companies will be publicly traded.
TripAdvisor will include domestic and international operations associated with the TripAdvisor Media Group. This includes the TripAdvisor brand, as well as 18 other travel media and advertising brands.
Expedia will continue to include the domestic and international operations of the company’s travel transaction brands, which include: Expedia.com, Hotels.com, eLong, Hotwire, Egencia, Expedia Affiliate Network, CruiseShipCenters, Venere, Classic Vacations and carrentals.com.
The announcement says:
It is anticipated that the transaction will take the form of a distribution of stock of TripAdvisor to Expedia stockholders or a reclassification of Expedia stock, with the holders of Expedia stock receiving a proportionate amount of TripAdvisor stock, in either case in a tax free transaction. It is expected that Expedia’s dual-class equity capital structure and the governance arrangements between Barry Diller and Liberty Media will be mirrored at TripAdvisor following the transaction.
The deal is still subject to final approval by the board in terms of the specifics. Expedia will seek stockholder approval as well. It’s all expected to close in the third quarter.
Online travel site Expedia said today it is launching a Facebook promotion that will offer more than $1 million worth of travel to friends on the social network.
The promotion is called the “Expedia FriendTrips” and people can participate in the promotion by becoming a fan of Expedia on Facebook. Then participants will create a “virtual plane” and will point the plane towards one of a number of vacation destinations. They will fill the plane with five of their Facebook friends , who will need to become a fan of Expedia.
“Expedia FriendTrips is not only the largest sweepstakes ever hosted on Facebook, it is the largest promotion in Expedia’s history by a wide margin,” said Scott Durchslag, president, Expedia Worldwide.
“I believe a million dollars’ worth of free travel will be a magnificent experience for our friends on Facebook.”
Participants can double their chance of winning by bringing more Facebook friends into the game. A Facebook friend on one plane can join multiple planes, or they can build different planes of their own. Once a particular entrant has brought 25 friends into the Expedia FriendTrips Game, their chance of winning doubles.
Expedia said it would also give away four $250 travel credits daily to contest participants who submit pictures and share stories of why they want to visit a particular place.
Online travel website Expedia has launched the “You Name it Contest and Sweepstakes,” on its Facebook page with the aim of coming up with a better name for its Vacation Packages.
Beginning today through February 3, users can visit the Expedia Facebook page and suggest a new name for Vacation Packages. Expedia will compile the entries and will select ten finalists. Users will then have the chance to vote for the winner among the ten finalists. The entry that receives the most votes will win the contest and get a vacation worth up to $10,000. The second-place winner will win a $500 Expedia credit. Voters can also win one of a several $250 travel credits.
Voting for the winning selection will begin on February 8 and end on February 15. Participants can vote for their favorite entry once per day through February 15. The voters themselves may earn a prize. Each vote counts as a sweepstakes entry.
"Vacation Packages have been available on Expedia.com for years. Billions of dollars in free money goes unclaimed because consumers simply don’t know, or don’t believe, that when they book their flight and hotel together, they may save,” said Tim MacDonald, senior vice president and general manager, Expedia.com.
“So we’re asking for their help in finding a name that will work better. Come up with a better name and win a trip of a lifetime."
As you may know, Google is trying to acquire ITA Software, but it has faced various hurdles, mainly led by a coalition called FairSearch, made up of travel sites. Now, the Department of Justice is looking at the deal.
Last night, CNN’s Jessica Yellin interviewed Tom Barnett, counsel to Expedia and former assistant attorney general for antitrust at the DOJ, and Adam Kovacevich, Google’s senior manager of global communications and public affairs together in what almost seemed like a court case in itself in which the audience was the jury.
Google’s stance is that it wants to provide better answers for consumers in travel search (airfares, flight times, etc.) and point them to third-party sites where they can actually purchase tickets – sites like those behind FairSearch.
The main concern of FairSearch, which the coalition hopes the DoJ will agree with, is that Google could possibly cut off access to ITA, which provides technology to other travel sites, and that given Google’s dominance in search in general, the other sites that depend on the technology will not be able to compete.
"It’s important to say, we haven’t designed this product yet, and we won’t be able to start designing it until we actually close this acquisition, so we don’t know for sure what these tools will look like," said Kovacevich. "But that said, we’re big believers that this is actually going to create more competition and more competition usually brings down prices for consumers. I think it’s also important to emphasize that we’re not going to be in the business of setting airfares. That’s up to the airlines, and we are going to be sending people directly to sites like Expedia and AmericanAirlines.com, where they can purchase these tickets."
He also said that Google will not deny service to competitors. "Google’s not going to do that," he said. "We’ve committed not to doing that, but I think also, more importantly, Tom and others have argued that ITA is somehow an essential input to some of these companies, and actually Expedia doesn’t even use ITA. Neither does Travelocity or Priceline. So the top three travel sites don’t even use ITA."
To this, Barnett responded, "With all due respect, Adam has misrepresented things. Google has not said that it would renew current licenses, that it would license continuing innovations, or that it would do so on reasonable terms. If Adam would like to say here and now publicly that Google will commit to do that to current licensees, that would address one of the concerns presented by the transaction."
Kovacevich maintains that Google plans to enter new agreements both with existing contactees and new ones, and that Google’s acquisition of ITA Software would help competition.
As Google has said in the past, competition is always a click away, and frankly they’re right. Google may dominate search, but people are still choosing which search engine they want to use. Are they not?
There is more to the conversation between Kovacevich and Barnett. You can watch the interview here.
Earlier this month, FairSearch added some new members to its coalition, including Microsoft (which obviously runs Bing and Bing Travel). Kovacevich told WebProNews, "I’m not sure there are any surprises here. Microsoft is our largest competitor and lobbies regulators against every acquisition we make…"
