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Airlines for Europe group that has Air France KLM and British
Airways owner IAG> as members, hotel group Hotrec, European
Hotel Forum, EuroCommerce, Ecommerce Europe and Independent
Retail Europe had in March expressed their concerns about the
impact of the new rules.
EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) imposes a list of dos and don'ts
on Google and five other tech giants aimed at giving users more
choice and rivals a better chance to compete, but the groups
voiced concerns the the adjustments could hurt their revenues.
In a joint letter to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and
EU industry chief Thierry Breton dated May 22 they said their
worries have mounted since then.
"Our industries have serious concerns that currently considered
solutions and requirements for implementing the DMA could
further increase discrimination," they wrote.
"Initial observations indicate that these changes risk severely
depleting direct sales revenues of companies by giving more
prominence to powerful online intermediaries due to the
preferential treatment they would receive," they said.
The Commission, which is now investigating Google for possible
DMA breaches, did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Google, which in a March blog post said changes to search
results give large intermediaries and aggregators more traffic
and less for hotels, airlines, merchants and restaurants, had no
immediate comment.
"We are concerned that the non-compliance investigation refers
only to the need to treat third-party services in a fair and
non-discriminatory manner, without any acknowledgement of
European businesses that also offer their services on Google,"
the groups said.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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