People searching for hotels in Belgium via Google Search may notice some changes in the coming months. Detailed hotel information has been removed as part of a test in response to complaints that Google is not complying with European regulations.
A temporary Search experiment has removed some hotel features from the results, including the map that shows the establishment's location and the property info normally displayed below this. Google confirmed the changes in a post on its website attributed to Oliver Bethell, director of "legal" at Google.
"Links to individual websites – including hotel and vacation rental websites and comparison sites – will be shown instead without any of the additional features," Bethell said.
The tests are also being carried out in Germany and Estonia. "The test will apply to users located in these three countries," Google stated. This means that users in Belgium will see the changes when searching both for hotels within Belgium and also when looking outside Belgium. For users outside of Germany, Belgium or Estonia there won't be any changes.
Complying with regulations
The decision to carry out this temporary test comes reluctantly as the company faces pressure from competitors and the new European Digital Markets Act (DMA), which prohibits Google from favouring its products and services on its platform to reign in the power of Big Tech companies.
Google states that it already implemented numerous changes to comply with European regulations. "This includes more than 20 modifications to Google Search, like the introduction of dedicated units and formats to boost the prominence of comparison sites for free in categories like flights, hotels, and shopping."
It is for the same reason that searching a place no longer provides a direct link to that location on Google Maps.
However, comparison websites are demanding more extensive modifications as some smaller rivals complained about lower traffic to their sites. According to Google, some want to prohibit everything "that is more advanced than a simple blue link to a website".
The American tech company argues that removing useful tools benefits neither consumers nor businesses in Europe. With this "short test", focusing on some of the features that have been the focus of the debate, Google aims to demonstrate that such measures could negatively impact user experience and website traffic to ensure the "discussion is informed by objective data".
The duration of the test has not been disclosed but when it ends results will show up as they did before.
