Ryanair has called on Google to enforce greater transparency on its online advertising as Ryanair passengers are being misled by screenscraper sites.
This follows extensive complaints from Ryanair customers who have been misled into booking Ryanair flights on non-Ryanair websites, which are purposely designed to mislead customers.
Ryanair says that websites such as eDreams have been paying for Google advertising to have their websites rank above the official Ryanair website on Google searches.
This in turn is misleading Ryanair customers into visiting the eDreams website, masquerading as Ryanair.com, and in turn booking with eDreams.
Ryanair has been engaged in several legal cases against screenscraper websites across Europe to prevent its customers from being subjected to additional, hidden charges and to ensure Ryanair has appropriate contact details to communicate with its customers.
Many of these websites continue to cause problems for Ryanair customers and/or fail/refuse to pass on vital information to both customers and Ryanair regarding issues such as flight changes, web check-in, special needs assistance and contact details, which has resulted in missed flights and repeated problems for Ryanair customers.
The Court of Hamburg recently ruled that eDreams has been using an unlawful subdomain and was misleading customers into thinking that it had an official partnership with Ryanair.
Ryanair urged customers to book directly on Ryanair.com and called on Google to enforce greater transparency on its advertising rules, to prevent European customers being misled and overcharged.
N.B. Image credit: ryanair.com
