Ryanair Urges Google To Ban Edreams Ads

(RTTNews) - Ryanair (RYA.L, RYAAY) said that it welcomed today's ruling by the UK Advertising Standards Authority which found that eDreams advertising on Google was "misleading" consumers and breached the CAP code. Ryanair now calls on Google to ban this deceptive eDreams advertising until such time that eDreams stops misleading consumers by passing itself off as Ryanair.

The UK ASA reviewed a series of complaints from consumers who were deceived by eDreams masquerading as Ryanair and Easyjet using the airlines name, brand and logo in a blatant attempt to dupe consumers into booking higher priced tickets on eDreams than those available on the Ryanair.com website.

Ryanair believes that Google has allowed this advertising, which the ASA now confirms breaches the CAP code, because it directly boosts the number of "click-throughs" on Google's paid for advertising search engine, thereby maximising Google's advertising revenues at the expense of consumers. Ryanair noted that it has repeatedly written to Google at the highest levels, including Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, enclosing hundreds of complaints by real customers who have been misled by eDreams false advertising on Google, and yet Google has failed/refused to take any action to prevent this deceptive advertising.