Right after we mentioned in our previous post that one of Bing’s strengths is its travel vertical, here comes an interesting post by Epicenter on the striking resemblance of Bing with that of Kayak travel search portal. As I was not familiar with Kayak I immediately checked out the site for awhile while opening Bing Travel in another browser tab to compare their look and feel. Indeed there’s a resemblance in the way both travel search portal presents travel search related results.
Even the Kayak people noticed the striking resemblance of Bing Travel to their site. Kayak’s chief marketing officer Robert Birge told Wired.com that they have brought the issue to Microsoft. But a Microsoft official deny Kayak’s claim saying that the technology they are using on Bing Travel was based on a collaborative effort between Farecast and Microsoft.
While Kayak can elevate this matter to proper authorities as there are existing copyright laws applicable to the matter, it would however be a long and tedious process and would be harder to prove.
So for now, Kayak might as well be contented with the fact that a major Internet player might have copied their travel search portal or at the least looks a lot like theirs. After all, this similarities may not affect Kayak’s travel search market share at all since they have established themselves as a major player in that niche.
Perhaps the ressemblance of Kayak and Bing would be less of surprise to you- had you also been aware that both services used EXACTLY the same API of ITA software a technology provider they licence DATA results from.
As far UI is concerned it seems to me quite ridiculous that Kayak would be concerned with Bing copying Kayak UI while Kayak has copied many ideas from Mobissimo.com
I checked bing for the first time for travels and OMG they have copied every bit of UI from kayak. I have been using kayak for a long time (long back before bing came) for my travel info. I am just wondering about the legality of such act.