tech · regulation
brussels asks why the message from your hotel was not from your hotel
the european commission has opened a formal case into whether booking.com does enough about fake listings, hijacked hotel accounts and ads dressed as search results.
a traveller
booked, paid, done. nice.
“the hotel”
please confirm your card again or lose the room.
the commission
whose job was it to stop that?
on wednesday the european commission opened formal proceedings against booking.com under the digital services actthe eu law that makes the biggest online platforms assess and reduce the risks their services create, such as scams and illegal content.. it is looking at three things: listings from people who pretend to own a property, scammers who take over a real property’s account and message guests for extra payments, and paid boosts in search results that are not clearly marked as adverts.
the law asks the biggest platforms to work out how their service can be abused and act on it. booking.com has more than 45 million users in the eu, which puts it in that group. the case is not that booking.com does nothing; it is that brussels thinks its homework on the risk was too thin. the register reports dutch figures alone of more than 1,000 fraud reports and €82,000 lost in the first part of this year, about ten times the year before.
“we feel that what they have done is absolutely substandard.”
pick one
in 2024, how much did booking.com say travel scams had grown over the previous 18 months?
what happens next: opening proceedings is not a finding. the commission now gathers evidence, and booking.com says it is cooperating fully. officials named what they want: faster takedowns when fraud is flagged, licence checks, and tighter sign-up for property owners.
sources
- commission to investigate how booking.com combats scams and fraud under the digital services act · european commissionprimary
- eu wants booking.com to check out of its scam problem · the register