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#booking

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What is the best place to find and book hotels and such, if you want to avoid US companies and if you care about things like privacy? Everything seems to be owned either by Expedia or Booking Holdings, which are both US companies. Are there any wholly European booking services out there?

Seized, settled, let: how #Airbnb and #Booking.com help Israelis make money from stolen Palestinian land - theguardian.com/world/ng-inter "As Israel deploys tanks in the West Bank for the first time in 20 years, we reveal how two of the world’s biggest travel companies are helping settlers commercialise stolen land" #shame #palestine

The Guardian · Seized, settled, let: how Airbnb and Booking.com help Israelis make money from stolen Palestinian landBy Prina Shah

A long, bitter summary of how #traveling and #privacy have become mutually exclusive:

»#PNR records are sent by most commercial #airlines to the destination country some 48 to 72 hours before departure. […] the traveler’s #address, cell #phone number, date of flight #booking, where the ticket was purchased, credit card and other #payment information, billing address, #baggage information, frequent flyer information, general remarks related to the passenger, date of intended travel, complete travel #itinerary, names of accompanying travelers, travel agency information […]

[on face scanning:] “Everybody should be able to go out of his own country and into any country and come back without having to queue in line and being able to use only his #face,” […]

[on "AI":] “They're kind of black boxes, so they will tell you that this person is potentially risky and this person kind of looks different, but how it makes this decision is kind of a mystery.” […]

[on gray surveillance:] the company’s “risk assessment capability enables a government to export its border to every single point on the globe where passengers can board flights, ships or trains bound for their territory.”«

wired.com/story/inside-the-bla

WIRED · Inside the Black Box of Predictive Travel SurveillanceBy Caitlin Chandler