Google under new pressure from Ryanair over ‘misleading’ screenscraper sites
Ryanair is renewing calls for Google to ban adverts for screenscraper websites after the search giant agreed to ban ads for payday loans.
From July, Google will ban ads for payday loans and related products from its advertising systems to protect users from ‘deceptive or harmful financial products’.
But Ryanair claims customers also need protecting from screenscraper website eDreams/Opodo and copycat websites which, it claims, use misleading subdomains incorporating the Ryanair name and using identical branding.
Ryanair launched Irish High Court proceedings against both eDreams and Google last December in a bid to stop them ‘advertising false Ryanair fares’, which are inflated with fees.
It says the UK Advertising Standards Authority has already ruled that eDreams advertising on Google was misleading consumers and breached the CAP code after reviewing a series of complaints from consumers.
It accused Google of allowing the advertising because it directly boosts the number of click-throughs on Google’s paid-for advertising search engine, thereby maximising its advertising revenues at the expense of consumers.
"It’s incredible that Google have announced that from July, they will ban misleading adverts for payday loans, yet repeatedly ignore calls to ban adverts by eDreams/Opodo, which the UK Advertising Standards Authority have already ruled are misleading," said Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs.
"We again call on Google to delist eDreams until all references to Ryanair have been removed from the eDreams advertising. It’s high time Google stopped talking from both sides of their mouths and put an end to this misleading advertising, which both eDreams and Google are profiting from."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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