Google can now not only tell you about a foreign country, but find you the cheapest way to fly there.
The search engine behemoth recently acquired airline ticket reservation system ITA software, which will mean absolutely nothing to you unless you’ve ever used a site like Tripadvisor to compare low price airfares. They took over ITA for a neat $700 mil, a move which had apparently been in the works for nearly a year but was only recently cleared by the US Department Of Justice.
The New York Times reports that the governing body “required Google to continue to license the software to other companies, to develop ITA products and offer them to competitors and to erect a firewall so it cannot see sensitive information from competitors.” In layman’s terms, they cant be greedy information hogs or they’ll face legal action. Incidentally, this is the first time in Google’s history that they have agreed to submit themselves to government scrutiny, probably after all those riots over street view in Europe.
So long, travel agents.
via New York Times.
