Online Travel Sites Lobby Congress To Block Google-ITA deal

In its ongoing effort to try to block Google's acquisition of ITA Software, a coalition of online travel sites sent a letter to every member of Congress warning against the negative repercussions that merging the two companies could have on consumers.

"This combination threatens to enable Google to dominate online flight and travel search, which can reduce the quality of travel information available to consumers, increase advertising costs, and result in higher airfares," according to the letter from the Fair Search coalition, which includes Expedia, Hotwire, TripAdvisor, KAYAK and Travelocity. ITA, which makes travel technology software, provides the backend flight search technology for American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Bing, Kayak, and Orbitz and others. With Google's dominance in the search market overall, travel search competitors fear they will be squeezed out of the marketplace.

"We believe that Google should not be allowed to enter a market in a way that simultaneously undermines the ability of other competitors to provide quality products to consumers and continue to innovate themselves," the coalition said.