It’s not a lucky time for Booking.com. After the data breach in mid-April – which exposed the names, emails and telephone numbers of thousands of users – the most used booking platform in Europe is now taking another blow: the Competition and Market Guarantor has started an investigation into unfair commercial practices.
The accusation
In the AGCM’s sights are the Partner Preferred and Partner Preferred Plus programs, labels that on the platform indicate the accommodation facilities with highlighted graphic elements and claims that enhance the quality of the service and the quality-price ratio. The problem, according to the Authority, is that the selection criteria would not guarantee any of this.
Commissions instead of quality
The investigation hypothesizes that the structures are admitted to the programs mainly on the basis of the commissions paid to Booking.com, not their qualitative characteristics. In this way, consumers could be induced to choose certain structures, believing them to be better – with the same characteristics – than non-adhering ones, with a side effect that is anything but secondary, i.e. selecting, on average, the most expensive structures.
The investigation concerns three entities of the group: Booking.com BV, Booking.com International BV and Booking.com (Italia) Srl. On 22 April, AGCM officials carried out inspections at the Italian headquarters with the help of the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza.
