Google Acquires ITA Software, Regulators May Balk

marino02 tips news that Google has acquired ITA Software, a company who sells travel-related software and information, for $700 million. "Google said it plans to use ITA's technology in its Web search tools and to allow potential passengers to shop for tickets right from Google. Travel search makes up a huge portion of Google searches, but it's a complicated type of search to express in a query box, [said Marissa Mayer]." Analysts expect the deal to come under scrutiny from the FTC. "With this deal, Google will have transformed itself into one of the biggest power brokers in the travel industry. It will control the leading software for powering online airline reservations. It will be able to provide something in its own search results above and beyond what its competitors — who merely license the ITA software — will be able to produce. And it will become the leading online advertising buy for travel-related advertisers (assuming it wasn't already) if it doesn't butcher the rollout of user-friendly airline search tools within Google's already popular interface."

Comments

Why travel?

[ArsonSmith]

With google earth and street view I don't actually need to leave the basement any more.

One of ITA's Customers is Bing

[longacre]

Hey, Bing, sorry that latest software update caused all your flights to be listed as "Oceanic 815." We'll roll out a fix for that in the next 4-6 months.

Google Maps

[Thelasko]

I'm anticipating the next time I use Google Maps to have the options of traveling by car, bike, walking, public transit, and by air.

Try it out

[feenberg]

You can use the ITA engine at http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch and it is really quite good compared to most airline/agency websites. However, it won't actually sell you a ticket.