Bloc also assesses safeguards against personal data misuse for phishing, payment fraud
BRUSSELS
The European Commission on Wednesday opened formal proceedings against Booking.com to investigate whether the online travel platform breached the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to adequately address fraudulent listings, phishing scams and advertising transparency.
The investigation will assess whether Booking.com properly identified and mitigated risks associated with fake accommodation listings, including non-existent properties, impersonation fraud and non-compliant offers, according to a statement.
The EU executive will also examine whether the platform took sufficient measures to prevent fraudulent listings from appearing on its service and protect consumers from potential scams.
A second focus of the investigation will be phishing attacks targeting Booking.com users through reservation and guest data.
The bloc will assess whether the platform adequately evaluated risks arising from the sharing of reservation information with accommodation providers, and the design and operation of its messaging service.
It will also examine whether sufficient safeguards are in place to prevent personal data from being misused to send phishing messages and solicit fraudulent payments.
The commission said it would conduct an in-depth investigation as a matter of priority, gathering further evidence through requests for information, interviews and inspections.
It may also impose interim measures, adopt non-compliance decisions or accept commitments from Booking.com to address the concerns under investigation.
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I’ve use booking.com frequently for at least 15 years and have never had trouble with them, but I know other users who have been conned by fake listings. Bookng.com has a reactive policy to dodgy listings-- they’ll follow up if someone reports one of them, but it’s not clear to me that they do any meaningful proactive screening (which would cost them a lot more).
This has also been happening with AirBnB, who seem much more reluctant to issue refunds when their customers are ripped off. But due diligence costs money.