Six months after the European Commission designated Booking.com as an online gatekeeper under rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the online travel agency said it has enacted changes to its operations to comply with the strict requirements of the regulation — including the removal of parity requirements that began in July.
Full details of its compliance measures are outlined in a report published Wednesday.
“Following Booking Holdings designation as a ‘Gatekeeper,’ consultations with the European Commission and relevant stakeholders informed the design of our compliance solutions,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “We will continue to deliver the experience that both our traveler customers and supplier partners expect, innovating to build trusted products and services that meet their ever-evolving needs.”
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The DMA provides a framework of regulation directed at major companies identified as “online gatekeepers.” The legislation is meant to help mold the digital landscape — both currently and in the future.
On Wednesday also, the European Commission shared an update noting the company was required to be in compliance as of that date. That means, concretely that travel providers that depend on the online travel agency to reach customers can enjoy the prohibition of parity clauses and anything with the same effect as those clauses, real time and continuous access to data and the ability to transfer that data to alternative platforms.
While a version of the compliance report is public, Booking was also required to submit an independent audit on techniques for profiling consumers and a non-confidential file on its consumer profiling report to the Commission. The Commission plans to review the report and determine whether Booking.com's measures meet requirements. The Commission said its analysis will be based also on stakeholders' input and also the context of a public workshop to be held on November 25th on compliance at which the company will share its solutions.
Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age, called Booking a key player and said it "must now comply with the DMA."
"Their role as intermediator between businesses and customers in accommodation, car-rentals and any other type of travel services will become fairer and more open. For example, until now many hotels and rental companies in the EU were obliged to guarantee the best prices on Booking.com," Vestager said. "Now EU businesses are free to differentiate prices and conditions on any online sales channel they wish to use. This proves that the DMA is an important tool in making online marketplaces fairer for businesses and more open to competition."
How Booking.com is complying with the DMA
Booking.com outlined what it is doing to get in line with the Digital Markets Act in a blog post.
“We have undertaken extensive assessments of our business practices to identify what each of the DMA’s provisions means for Booking.com,” the blog post said.
To start, the company has eliminated parity requirements for partners in the European Economic Area - freeing those partners to offer lower rates on their own website or through other travel sellers than the rates they provide to Booking.com.
The OTA has also launched a tool to give travelers better access to and control of their personal data. Called the Data Portability Application Programming Interface, Booking.com said the new tool gives users free, real-time access to their data and the ability to export it to third-parties.
Additionally, Booking.com has improved partners’ access to data that it said should help them use the platform to its fullest extent. The platform has launched dashboards for data insights related to attractions and car rentals. And the company has eliminated data flowing between Booking.com and its sister brands such as Agoda, Kayak, Priceline and more.