Federal Court decision upheld by the Full Federal Court.
The Federal Court in January found that Trivago breached Australian Consumer Law after misleading consumers about hotel room rates on both its website and television advertisements. It appealed the decision in March, but the Full Federal Court on Wednesday dismissed the appeal. The initial ruling declared that from at least December 2016, Trivago was using an algorithm to place « significant weight » on hotel booking sites that paid Trivago the highest cost-per-click fee and, therefore, did not often present the cheapest rates to consumers. The judge at first instance had found Trivago did not sufficiently disclose to users that it was using this practice. The primary judge also found Trivago’s hotel room rate comparisons that used strike-through prices or highlighted text in different colours gave consumers a false impression that they were making savings because, in reality, Trivago was comparing an offer for a standard room with an offer for a luxury room at the same hotel.
