Yes, that's what I mean about not knowing if aggregators got more or less popular over the last decade. I'm still not sure, but from a few searches, here's what I got:

Google Shopping is the #1 shopping aggregator according to this site: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/shopping-websites

The #2 Coupons.com, is going downhill fast: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/coupons.com

The #3, Bizrate.com, is also going downhill fast: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bizrate.com

So it does seem like Google Shopping is taking over traffic from other aggregators.

All 3 aren't widely used in the EU. Especially not in Germany where the people from the EU who said these things coming from. Also the biggest price aggregator from Germany, Austria and others, are still rising and rising according to Alexa. I mean less people go through searches to these sites however thats caused by the fact that they have a really easy name.

What the EU government does is toxic. It does what it get's told by smaller companies that aren't satisfied with their sales. Thats more than toxic since it changes the free market, however thats what the european government always did, they don't make goods for the people they make goods for the money.

Google Shopping isn't usually accessed directly but rather through the main Google search. Good to hear that there are other ones rising too.

Not being familiar with any of those ( probably a sheltered UK life ), I went to www.coupons.com to see what it's about.

At the bottom of the page is an About.. link, but they have infinite scrolling and I'm not fast enough to catch it. Quite an awful UI.

Some background that's related.

http://graphics.wsj.com/google-ftc-report/img/ftc-ocr-waterm...