Google’s proposed $700m acquisition of travel search outfit ITA Software is continuing to be probed by the US government, which could lead to the Department of Justice blocking the deal. According to Bloomberg, which cites people familiar with the situation, regulators are mulling over bringing a possible lawsuit against …

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Friday 14th January 2011 13:24 GMT Andrew Jones 2

Seems a bit silly?

If Microsoft were proposing the takeover I could understand it - but as it is Google they would be 99% likely to provide an API interface to the new data allowing anyone to use the information for free??

Ask yourselves what mine of data do Google have access to that they HAVE NOT provided an easy way to access by means of the search box AND an API?

as far as I know nobody actually has to pay Google to use any of their data?

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1. Friday 14th January 2011 13:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  API to access the stolen wi-fi data
  
  I don't remember Google offering such an API.
  
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  1. Friday 14th January 2011 22:56 GMT Andrew Jones 2
    
    re: API to access the stolen wi-fi data....
    
    1) the data wasn't stolen - anybody with a wireless data could have accessed the data - if people are stupid enough to be transmitting data wireless with no encryption or security on it at all that's their fault.
    
    2) Google did not provide access to "stolen wifi data" in the search box either
    
    However - Google did / do provide access to an API that allows you to present a list of wireless access points mac addresses and receive an approximate GPS coordinate (using the data obtained from the Google Street view vans)
    
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Friday 14th January 2011 13:24 GMT Anonymous Coward

two particular issues

So what are these" two particular issues"? Not much information in this article, I must say...

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Friday 14th January 2011 14:02 GMT Anonymous Coward

I forgot....

And what about the lawsuit? Even if a regulator denies approval of an acquisition, how does that end up with a lawsuit?

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1. Friday 14th January 2011 14:37 GMT Steve Davies 3
  
  In the USA you have the right...
  
  To sue the pants off everyone for anything you might have the slightest tiny little problem with.
  
  This only benefits the Lawyers naturally.
  
  IMHO, if the USofA were to spend even 50% of the amount it does on its totally screwed up legal system on R&D, it would go along way to pulling them out of the giant hole that are in.
  
  But as most politicans are lawyers then that ain't gonna fly is it?
  
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Friday 14th January 2011 15:36 GMT Anonymous Coward

Hard to defend Google...

Okay, I find it hard to defend Google. They've done some truely despicable things, and I firmly beleive given the chance they'd do more, but... *you can use Bing any time you want!* Seriously, even if they have 90% of the online ad market, if someone wrote a better tool, everyone would switch tomorrow.

Search my comments, I think the DOJ should be the strongest government body. Which leads me to ask, why Google, instead of the ISPs, which:

1. Lock customers in with contracts

2. Have natural monopolies

3. Collude to inflate prices

4. Collude to prevent access to unlocked phones

5. Fraudulently charge customers outright

6. Establish their monopolies based on public right of way and spectrum

FFS, sue Google. Block the deal for all I care, but properly address the bigger problems first... like ISP monopolies, collusion and racketeering!

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1. Friday 14th January 2011 16:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Nope
  
  "Seriously, even if they have 90% of the online ad market, if someone wrote a better tool, everyone would switch tomorrow."
  
  Goolgle search is seriously flawed. Try putting in an exact phrase that you know exists on a particular page. Now see how many other pages without the exact phrase you are looking for appear before the page you are looking for.
  
  Google got where they are by being (a) better than others in the dim and distant and (b) being very good at marketing. Ranking pages based on things like what other people were looking for or clicked on when they used some of the same search terms as you might seem like a good idea to you, but it seems like a dumb idea to me. I know what I'm looking for, I don't need a search engine that second guesses me. I particularly don't need a search engine that bases those second guesses on advertising, refereral fees and general commercial concerns.
  
  Google seems to be pretty good if you are looking to buy something, but most of the time I use specialized search tools depending on what I'm looking for. Google is decidedly average and is used by lazy people who can't be bothered to put in a little effort.
  
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  1. Friday 14th January 2011 23:09 GMT Gerhard Mack
    
    nuts to that
    
    You only say that because you don't remember what life was like when search engines actually trusted web sites to be honest abut what was on their page. I don't miss the times when search engine optimization made sure that no matter what you searched for it came back as spam.
    
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  2. Monday 17th January 2011 11:14 GMT Shazback
    
    Goolgle search is seriously flawed.
    
    I just searched "Goolgle search is seriously flawed." 1 result (0.39 seconds) : http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/01/14/google_ita_doj/
    
    I don't know, seems to have found it without too many pages that don't have the exact phrase being put before the page I was looking for.
    
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    1. Monday 17th January 2011 14:33 GMT Grease Monkey
      
      Too Many?
      
      How many is too many? Surely one is too many.
      
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2. Friday 14th January 2011 23:09 GMT Tom 13
  
  Repeat after me,
  
  There are no natural monopolies, only monopolies where governments have granted exclusive rights.
  
  There are no natural monopolies, only monopolies where governments have granted exclusive rights.
  
  There are no natural monopolies, only monopolies where governments have granted exclusive rights.
  
  Things might feel different in Old Blighty, but I live in an area where the government hasn't granted those exclusive rights and have access to at least three major ISP vendors and gawd knows how many little ones.
  
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  1. Saturday 15th January 2011 06:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    @Tom 13
    
    You sound like you're trying to convince yourself, not others.
    
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Tuesday 18th January 2011 10:10 GMT JaitcH

American has changed the game plan ...

by killing off the special deals it had with these complaining would be competitors thereby forcing passengers to use the AA web site to check for deals and driving prices higher.

AA was the originator of several passenger shafting moves including killing off travel agent commissions.

If other air carriers were to adopt this ticketing strategy, all the Expedias and screen-scrapers will have poblems. Some might say Ryanair started this, but is Ryanair a normal carrier?

One worth looking at is Travelocity, owned by GDS Sabre, which gets its data from the GDS rather than directly from the airlines.

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