Antitrust versus TripAdvisor: according to TAR review "false" goes well

This article discusses the report which saw as protagonist the well-known tourist web-site TripAdvisor and the recently judical review of the TAR. The Administrative Court overturns the decision of Italian Antitrust Authority and undo the heavy penalty to be imposed on these, on the assumption that the presence of false reviews on the website will not affect the economic behavior of consumers-travelers. In this paper we revisit the relevant sections of the complex legal affair, moving from the Authority resolution will analyze the most interesting profiles of the TAR judgment. The two decisions are antithetical mirror guidelines diverging consumer protection and system enforcement of unfair trade practices; for these reasons this juridical analisys is supported by economic testing in order to examine to what extent the lack of controls can alter the quality of information and, therefore, the choices of travelers favoring the presence of false reviews. Through a simulation model to agents TripAvisor system’s replica, and interaction travelers-hotels without any control by the provider, we will be able to ascertain whether the alteration of hotel’s popularity index depends on the Number of hotels in an area or, rather, by the number of reviews in the system. The analysis, ultimately, will gather suggestions for policy, defining the percentage of false reviews for each level of propensity to deception on the part of travelers.

Luigi Bonaventura, Margherita Lazzara, Antitrust versus TripAdvisor: secondo il TAR la recensione "falsa" va bene in "RIVISTA ITALIANA DI DIRITTO DEL TURISMO" 14/2015, pp 147-156, DOI: 10.3280/DT2015-014002