UPDATE: Google says (Fri 7 January) that the Translate team has "fixed the bug" in the system and Expedia no longer replaces Opodo when switching from French to English.
ORIGINAL:
Some visitors to the Opodo France website were probably a bit confused recently after Google Translate switched mentions of the Opodo brand name to Expedia.
A British Airways landing page on the site has a number of information boxes for users, including "Tour pur votre voyage avec Opodo!".
The segment goes on to say how users can use Opodo to organise every element of a trip, etc, etc. Standard website marketing content.
Unfortunately, if a visitor was so inclined to click the Google Translate button at the top of the site (for Chrome users) to switch to English, content was automatically changed to the following: "Everything for your trip with Expedia!".
Now the chances of a visitor to the French language version of Opodo suddenly needing to translate to English and seeing the information box are, perhaps, rather slim - although landing pages such as these are also created for search, so there may be some implications in that area.
But, really, this is hardly the point.
Opodo has apparently informed the search giant and the problem is being looked into.
A Google official says:
"We rely on the community to flag any bugs that they find with Translate, as it's a service that is continually improved by this means."
The simple answer, of course, may be that Google knows quite a bit about the decision by Opodo-owner Amadeus to explore strategic options (in other words, up for sale) for the online travel agency and has jumped for gun. :)