The European Commission, the Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority and the Belgian Directorate-General for Economic Inspection sent a letter to Google on Monday 26 July requesting that it is more transparent and that it complies with EU law.
The Commission and the Belgian and Dutch authorities have emphasised the need for European consumers to know how their online search results are ranked.
The European Commission also called on Google to display final flight and hotel prices, and to include fees and taxes, in order that consumers can budget for their holidays without getting any unpleasant surprises.
“European consumers cannot be fooled when they use search engines to plan their holidays. We must empower them to make their choices on the basis of transparent and impartial information”, said the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders.
The European Commission also stressed how important it was that Google promptly remove any content that violates consumer protection rules.
The company now has two months in order to implement and communicate the changes. In the event that these are deemed insufficient, a follow-up dialogue might then take place. This could precede sanctions levied by national authorities against Google. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)