Whitey - 11:53 am on Sep 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

It’s not entirely clear what would happen if the selected airline were not an advertiser

...c'mon , who said that. Give them candy for free until they become dependant, make them a slave to the machine for the rest of their lives 'til they get exhausted, then put them in the hospitals and charge for the treatment and leave the burial to the relatives to pay for. It's not pretty - but some call it clever marketing.

That's what's happening to the entire digital industry in the large data driven verticals. Business listings are not far behind. No wonder China and Russia want to control it for their own purposes through their local search engines.

If you don't have visibility, you're simply not in the game and this is moving towards very big business relationships, where the economies of scale dominate.

The US/Canadian airline industry just got a degree warmer.