TripAdvisor 2012 Annual Report Download - page 28

Loss of trust in our brand would harm our reputation and adversely affect our business, financial condition
and results of operations. Our success depends on attracting a large number of users to our websites, and
retaining such users, and providing leads and clicks to advertisers. In order to attract and retain users, we must
remain a valuable source of travel advice. Because of our reliance on user-generated content, we must
continually manage and monitor our content and detect incorrect or fraudulent information. For example, hotels,
hotel competitors, or others, in an attempt to improperly influence a hotel’s reviews and rankings, sometimes
write and submit fraudulent or otherwise misleading reviews. If a significant amount of inaccurate or fraudulent
information were not detected and removed by us in a timely manner, or if a significant amount of information
was deemed by users or the media to be inaccurate or fraudulent, our brand, business and reputation could be
harmed. Any damage to our reputation could harm our ability to attract and retain users, employees and
advertisers, which would adversely affect our business and financial performance. In addition, significant adverse
news reports or media, industry or consumer coverage of us would reflect poorly on our brands and could have
an adverse effect on our business and financial performance.
We are dependent upon the quality of traffic in our network to provide value to online advertisers, and any
failure in our quality control could have a material adverse effect on the value of our websites to our
advertisers and adversely affect our revenue.
We use technology and processes to monitor the quality of and to identify any anomalous metrics associated
with, the Internet traffic that we deliver to online advertisers. These metrics may be indicative of low quality
clicks such as non-human processes, including robots, spiders or other software; the mechanical automation of
clicking; and other types of invalid clicks or click fraud. Even with such monitoring in place, there is a risk that a
certain amount of low-quality traffic, or traffic that online advertisers deem to be invalid, will be delivered to
such online advertisers. As a result, we may be required to credit amounts owed to us by our advertisers.
Furthermore, low-quality or invalid traffic may be detrimental to our relationships with advertisers, and could
adversely affect our advertising pricing and revenue.
New technologies could block our ads, which would harm our business.
Technologies have been developed that can block the display of online ads and that provide tools to users to
opt out of some web-based advertising products. We derive most of our revenues from fees paid to us by
advertisers in connection with the display of ads on web pages for our users. As a result, these technologies and
tools could adversely affect our business and financial performance.
Unfavorable media coverage could negatively affect our business.
We receive significant media coverage in our various geographic markets. Unfavorable publicity regarding,
for example, our privacy practices, product changes, the accuracy of user-generated content, product quality,
litigation or regulatory activity could adversely affect our reputation with our site users and our advertisers. Such
negative publicity also could have an adverse effect on the size, engagement, and loyalty of our user base and
result in decreased revenue, which could adversely affect our business and financial results.
If we do not continue to innovate and provide tools and services that are useful to travelers, we may not
remain competitive, and our business and financial performance could suffer.
Our success depends in part on continued innovation to provide features and services that make our websites
and smartphone and tablet computing applications useful for travelers. Our competitors are continually
developing innovations in online travel-related services and features. If we are unable to provide quality features
and services that travelers want to use, then travelers may become dissatisfied and use a competitor’s offerings. If
we are unable to continue offering innovative products and services, we may be unable to attract additional users,
which could adversely affect our business and financial performance.
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