Price: $700 million
Announced: July 2010
FTC Approval: April 2011
This Cambridge, MA-based travel search company made the software for travel search sites and airlines. Google's purchase troubled some in the industry, who feared for the competitive viability of clients such as Kayak and TripAdvisor. To meet concerns during a lengthy review by the Federal Trade Commission, Google first promised to honor all ITA contracts. Shortly before approval, it went a step further and "formally committed to let ITA's customers extend their contracts into 2016," senior VP Jeff Huber wrote on Google's blog.
Now that competition has been presumably safeguarded for the next five years, Google can launch into its plans for ITA's technology: new flight search capability. Huber's post imagined a day when a user can simply type "flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May" and immediately see flight times, fares, and ticket vendors within Google's search.
NEXT: 4. AdMob
