Priceline Group Leaves Door Open for Booking Through Google

Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston said today during the company' third quarter earnings call that Booking.com will begin testing this week its new partnership with TripAdvisor to participate in TripAdvisor Instant Booking. He said Priceline Group entered the partnership because it was able to get the type of branding it needed in this Book on TripAdvisor booking process along with reasonable return on investment. One of the issues that the two companies resolved, Huston said, was that he didn't want Booking.com's content in TripAdvisor Instant Booking to help other companies get bookings but wanted it primarily to help Booking.com get bookings and repeat customers. "We would never want to be a dumb pipe to somebody else's brand," Huston said. Then in a cryptic -- although unstated reference to Google's Book on Google initiative -- H