[ajtaylor]

Good question, especially that Google's offer was along the lines of $700M CASH.

I don't think the travel sites have many choices though considering the very powerful products ITA has to offer. Can you imagine what would happen if ITA were to be swallowed up and stop providing services to Expedia and the like? It's unlikely because of the anti-trust issues, but... that's not something I would bet my company's future on.

[warpwoof]

From what I understand ITA doesn't provide services to Expedia. Expedia has its own flight search engine that may be opened up to compete with ITA: "Best Fare Search"

http://www.tnooz.com/2010/05/10/news/if-google-reins-in-ita-...