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Have you ever tried to check out fares for your travel plans at a website called ITA Software? The answer to that is probably a Yes and No. Even if you don’t go to the ITA website directly, this is a company whose technology powers most travel websites. It’s been doing well for itself over the last 15 years or so; and now, Google owns it – the Internet giant paid about three-quarters of a billion dollars for it. So what does Google want with it? Well, think about it – Google does search, finding the lowest air fare involve search, it sounds like a pretty well-thought out match.

What Google plans is an industry-heaving move. You’ll be able to search for the lowest fares around using a great combination of Google’s powerful search algorithms, and ITA’s travel smarts. Everyone’s always said this about Google – when they move into a new industry, the industry closes down, and Google is the only one that’s left standing. It happened with the maps business, it practically did with e-mail, Android is taking over the smartphone world, and YouTube marches on practically with no competition. What will happen in the travel industry – to Orbitz, to Expedia and all the other services out there, now that Google has decided to throw its hat in the ring?

Enter the way Google does business; this seems like yet another sign that Google is spreading out from merely directing people to other websites for information, to providing that information by itself. Google has two-thirds of the search market in America, and sometimes more – over the rest of the world. Each time they’ve try to take over a new business, the antitrust regulators and government seem to look more worried. Google Books went and scanned out-of-print books to make available to anyone, and the antitrust people fielded complaints; but when they tried to acquire AdMob for an edge in advertising on cell phones, the FTC put its foot down – until Apple, a competitor, did the same. Everyone’s worried that allowing Google to find the lowest air fare for you will be more concentration of power in the same hands.

The fare-search business has taken a funny little turn now – Bing Travel has always run on ITA Software’s results. So it would seem now, that Bing will actually be displaying Google’s results. But why are the airlines worried about it – why are they planning to sue and stop Google from taking over ITA? They worry that if Google is selling tickets on its own, any airline website an get pushed lower down in the search rankings – behind Google’s own. It could be a very good thing for travelers though. People have specific requirements for how they want to travel, and up till now, the travel search engines have been pretty inflexible. Google with its famed algorithms, could find you not just your lowest air fare, but the best route, the best airline, the best seat, and all with nothing more than just one question worded anyway you wish.

The author has been writing articles online for 4 years now. Come visit his latest site Traffic Siphon that discusses Traffic Siphon review by George Brown & Andrew X.

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