Google Sanitizes EU Search Results to Avoid More Fines
Google has made significant changes to its search results page for European travelers in an effort to avoid fines from antitrust regulators. The company's revamped search results now show two distinct units for searches on flights, hotels, or restaurants: one exclusively for third-party aggregators and booking sites, and another unit for direct suppliers.
Users within the European Union can no longer filter by travel dates, check live pricing, or use descriptive tags like 'budget' or 'boutique' directly within the results. The changes also apply to Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode.
In addition, Google has removed its vacation rentals unit from its European search results page, although vacation rental feeds can still power results outside of the search unit on Google Maps and google.com/hotels.