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. Reuters
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