The problem with such deceptive behaviour is that some people do fall for it and think these sites are some kind of benevolent enterprise. I don't really understand why 'reputable' brands continue to work with them?
Of course not, just as the people who decided to do this and the people who implemented this face no real consequences at all either (if any at all). We need to stop fining companies and start holding people accountable. Companies are nothing more than some ink on a piece of paper; it's people who do good (or bad) things.
From the perspective of trying to keep companies from doing this in the future, that's not really relevant. Trivago gets hurt just as much of the money ends up with the government or with the customers.
Not that I'm against customers getting it, but if you look at it from a straight-forward "give incentives for companies to not follow Trivago's example" perspective, then fining them is enough to accomplish that.
Well that's revenue and not profit, so they might not have come out on top.
From the article:
> The court found that Trivago would have made between $53 million and $58 million less if customers had always clicked out onto the cheapest offer.
> The court also estimated that consumers ended up paying about $30 million more for their hotel rooms than if they had always clicked on the cheapest offer, rather than the top-position offers featured by Trivago.
It looks like overall this is pretty proportional to the damage actually.
Edit: Though I do agree overall it's important for Trivago to come out net negative if companies are to have a financial incentive not to do this sort of thing. I would agree that the fine should be high enough to ensure that.
Article is very unclear about the violation. Was Trivago not initially displaying the lowest available price for each specific hotel? Or just not listing the cheapest hotels first?
In other words, was it showing a specific Hilton for 149/night when it was actually available for 129? Or was it showing that Hilton at 149 (the lowest price for that hotel) before Motel 6 for 59? If it's the latter, I don't see a problem.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 22.8 ms ] threadNot that I'm against customers getting it, but if you look at it from a straight-forward "give incentives for companies to not follow Trivago's example" perspective, then fining them is enough to accomplish that.
$92M - $45M = $47M
Average pay out to customers who were ripped off = $0
Incentive to not do this again = 0
From the article:
> The court found that Trivago would have made between $53 million and $58 million less if customers had always clicked out onto the cheapest offer.
> The court also estimated that consumers ended up paying about $30 million more for their hotel rooms than if they had always clicked on the cheapest offer, rather than the top-position offers featured by Trivago.
It looks like overall this is pretty proportional to the damage actually.
Edit: Though I do agree overall it's important for Trivago to come out net negative if companies are to have a financial incentive not to do this sort of thing. I would agree that the fine should be high enough to ensure that.
In other words, was it showing a specific Hilton for 149/night when it was actually available for 129? Or was it showing that Hilton at 149 (the lowest price for that hotel) before Motel 6 for 59? If it's the latter, I don't see a problem.