Google is nearing government approval of its bid to buy travel firm ITA Software after being fraught with antitrust investigations for months, a report coming from The Associated Press says.
Citing “a person with knowledge of the situation”, the AP says that the $700 million deal could be approved as early as Friday.
The deal has been under intense attention as rivals of the internet search and advertising giant has accused that the deal will give Google unfair advantage in the online aspect of airfare search and booking.
Rivals fear that with Google’s dominant search engine, it might build an airfare comparison site powered by ITA Software’s technology and use the system to dominate searches for airfares with the Google search engine.
ITA Software’s technology powers reservations systems of sites such as TripAdvisor and Hotwire. Analysts say that the case will reflect just how much US authorities would want to control the spread of Google’s influence outside its strongest fields which are internet search and advertising.
