A U.S. district judge ruled Tuesday that Google must begin sharing some of its data with competitors, but the decision allows the search giant to keep its Chrome browser.
The ruling made plenty of headlines in the wake of other Google-related news, including the same judge’s widely discussed 2024 ruling that Google created a monopoly over online travel and Perplexity’s $34.5 billion bid for Google Chrome earlier this summer.
Google has touted its massive volume of search queries and click data that gives it a better understanding of consumers’ interests. As billions of people use the platform daily, Google collects information on search habits, clicking and the length of time users are engaged with the content they find. But frustration with search results and an uneven competitive environment has made Google's supremacy an ongoing target of complaint in the travel industry.
So, what does it mean for travel now that the company will be required to share some data with rivals? Will other search platforms rise? Will the ruling benefit or hurt Google?
The general consensus among travel industry players is that this news is less consequential than it might’ve been in the past. Due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media, the decision lands in an already changing landscape that challenges Google’s preeminence.
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“Today, in 2025, it's less of a worry,” said Rod Cuthbert, founder of Viator. “It's disappointing, but the landscape is changing so quickly that Google's absolute dominance is becoming a thing of the past.”
Some don’t believe the ruling was enough—even with the progression of search that’s already happening with new technology.
“While we appreciate the court's recognition of Google's anticompetitive behavior, this ruling falls short of the structural changes necessary to restore genuine competition,” said Johannes Thomas, CEO of Trivago.
“By declining to mandate the divestiture of Chrome or Android, and still allowing paid default placements, the court has effectively preserved the architecture of Google's monopoly.”
He sees that as dangerous even with the ongoing evolution.
“As AI reshapes how we access information, allowing these monopolistic structures to persist risks entrenching them for another generation,” he said.
Bottom line: While the ruling may not level the playing field in the near future, some believe the data sharing component could have bigger implications in the long run.
“The Google antitrust ruling marks the start of a slow shift, though Google will remain largely intact,” said Brennen Bliss, CEO of Propellic.
Jared Alster, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Dune7, agreed.
“Longer term, if the ruling is upheld and Google is forced to share data with competitors, it would likely eliminate Google's largest competitive advantage—its trove of customer search and click data,” Alster said. “But the quick market reaction to the news seems to indicate that Google dodged the most severe punishments in this case.”
This all comes as companies in the travel space are actively diversifying.
While speaking at the Citi 2025 Global TMT Conference Wednesday, Ewout Steenbergen, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Booking Holdings, said it’s been a “game changer” for the travel giant to shift a large part of its dependence on Google traffic to different channels.
Mid-60% of Booking Holdings’ traffic comes on a B2C basis now, while mid-30% comes from paid channels, he said.
“But there we are diversifying,” he said. “So, Google is still a very important part of the paid traffic, but indeed, we are expanding in social, and I think that's very attractive.”
“This is going to be further expanding to—in my view, in the future—agents, generative AI agents. We're working very closely together with many of the large language model developers. And I think these will be new generators of traffic.”
Additional travel players weighed in and and shared their gut reactions with PhocusWire.
What travel stakeholders had to say:
(Responses have been edited and condensed for length and clarity)
Christian Watts, CEO of Magpie
This seems like a pretty comprehensive victory for Google. The company valuation is up almost $200 billion on the news. It looks like the only serious stipulation is no more “exclusive” deals, but I'm sure that's an easy clause to comply with where both parties know the rules required.
It all looks a little bit too late to me. Ten years ago Google probably had an almost complete monopoly on search. Today, much of it has moved to social and video (yes, Google owns the biggest platform there too), and the LLMs are revolutionizing search as we speak. Potentially, in less that a year from now, AI Mode will be the norm and all of this will have to be assessed again. I doubt the government agencies will ever catch up.
Marina Petrova, CEO and co-founder of Intentful
The ruling in Google’s antitrust case essentially means that advertisers will continue to spend heavily with Google, at least for the foreseeable future.
The advertising model of performance marketing, pretty much created and fueled by Google, has helped the advertising ecosystem get to a completely new level as opposed to the old world of just TV and press, but this is about to get disrupted in unimaginable ways.
While ‘legacy’ models will continue existing, unexpected shifts like the new type of browser will likely redefine the rules of privacy and (no) data collection.
For the travel industry, my recommendation is as always and ever to focus on your visitors and customers, and follow closely how their engagement habits change.
The ruling lets Google keep its grip on both the browser and the search engine, and those are still the main entry points for travel discovery and booking.
Shir Ibgui, Globe Thrivers
Shir Ibgui, founder and CEO of Globe Thrivers
The ruling lets Google keep its grip on both the browser and the search engine, and those are still the main entry points for travel discovery and booking. It’s a win for Google, but the landscape is already shifting. Travelers are using social media and AI tools to plan trips. Google knows this, hence the AI summaries, Google Lens and Google Gemini integrations.
The ban on exclusive contracts is a step, but Google can still pay to be the default search engine, and most people don’t change their defaults. That still makes it hard for new players to break through. This could’ve opened the funnel for platforms to compete on experience and trust, not just budgets. Maybe there is still a chance to give others a real shot at becoming the first step in the travel journey. Travel discovery is evolving fast, and the next wave is just getting started.
Max Starkov, consultant and hotel technology strategist
This antitrust suit has been an ill-conceived suit from the start. Google is literally struggling for its survival in this age of generative AI and AI Search. Google’s primary revenue source, paid search, is facing a challenge from answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which utilize AI to provide direct, synthesized answers to user queries instead of presenting a list of links, whether sponsored or organic.
Jason Noronha, co-founder of D3x
What's particularly interesting is the mandated search index data sharing. In the context of generative AI, this could feed some innovative travel tools with fuel to build brand new user experiences. The remedies also extend to generative AI (i.e. no exclusive Gemini contracts) which could open the door to other AI engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Grok in the device market and prevent a Google-dominated AI future.
Having said that, Google probably has a bunch of legal tools up its sleeve, and in the short term, it's back to business as usual.