France fines Google 1.1 million euros for "misleading ratings" of hotels

"Google" replaced the official classification with another, which it put according to its criteria

The American company "Google" agreed to pay a fine of 1.1 million euros in France after it published a "misleading classification" for hotels in the country, replacing the official classification with another that it set according to its standards, according to the French administrative body to stop fraud.

In a statement, the authority stated that an investigation by the General Administration of Competition and Consumption and the Cessation of Forgery, launched in 2019, proved "the deceptive nature of Google's classification of hotels in France, especially on its search engine."

Consequently, "Google Ireland and Google France corrected their information and agreed, after an agreement with the Paris prosecutor, to pay a fine of 1.1 million euros as part of a criminal procedure."

Regarding the main French union of the sector, the Union of Hotel Professions and Industry, the president of the hotel industry, Laurent Duc, expressed his "satisfaction" with this measure, explaining: "We have rejected this matter since 2008."

"Google France" explained that the classification that was assigned in advance to the institutions based on information from various external sources available to the public on the Internet, reflects only the official French ranking of hotels on the search engine and maps on Google.

After receiving "complaints from hotels criticizing Google for showing a misleading classification of hotels," the General Administration of Competition and Consumption and the cessation of fraud "monitored in 2019 and 2020 the nature of the information published on the platform and its validity."

More than 7,500 hotels were compared "in a number of cases" to "the only official rating found in France issued by the French Tourism Development Authority", ranging from one star to five stars.

It turned out that "Google" replaced the classification of the French Tourism Development Authority with a classification that it set according to its own criteria, which "was greatly confusing by its presentation and similar use of the term (stars) according to the same scale from one to five stars, to classify tourism institutions.

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