AAI Applauds DOJ's Decision, Cites Concern for Overall General Search Market

In a statement released yesterday, American Antitrust Institute (AAI) applauded the DOJ for “recognizing and taking steps to prevent the Google/ITA transaction’s potential harm to quality, innovation and consumer choice in the comparative flight search services market.”

But AAI noted that it has “concerns that the proposed remedy may not adequately prevent such harms.” Specifically, AAI concludes that “if this merger does enable Google to monopolize the meta-search engine market, this could help raise barriers to entry into the overall general search market. Google already has a monopoly position in this market, and any merger that might help protect or enhance this monopoly is a serious cause for concern.”

Prior to the announcement, AAI released a white paper citing that the “Google/ITA merger could lead to unregulatable monopoly.”