An Australian court has fined hotel booking website Trivago A$44.7 million ($32.91 million) for misleading consumers over hotel room rates.
Trivago is a unit of U.S.-based online travel firm Expedia Group.
The Federal Court fined Trivago for falsely presenting hotel rooms as being the cheapest available, when it was in fact promoting rooms of paid advertisers.
Trivago is no stranger to hitches with Australia’s apex court. In January 2020, the court found that Trivago had breached Australian Consumer Law by misleading consumers by using an algorithm that pushed hotels paying “the highest cost-per-click fee” higher, and not highlighting the cheapest rates for consumers.
