Did Ryanair try blocking their IP’s or adding captchas? Or did they sue because the cat and mouse game became too much?
iirc, Ryanair login-walled ticket prices, which means anyone accessing the pricing/booking pages were agreeing to their ToS
Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
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Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#12pretty bad precedent, id argue that anything thats publicly accesible is free to be scraped. So unless they did something illegal via bypassing security, then this sets a really bad tone for internet archival, web scraping and data collection in the future.
As I understand it, scraping data read-only is fine (Google Flights, Skyscanner etc) but using automated processes to book tickets on behalf of customers without sending them to the Ryanair site is not fine.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#13Simultaneously being hostile towards users with upselling dark patterns and towards web scappers where everyone is a suspect, that's what most of the web has become.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#14Did Ryanair try blocking their IP’s or adding captchas? Or did they sue because the cat and mouse game became too much?
iirc, Ryanair login-walled ticket prices, which means anyone accessing the pricing/booking pages were agreeing to their ToS
I’m not sure that’s what login-walled means (ie I can access pricing and booking pages without logging in)
If you search on google you are also agreeing to their terms, there just isn’t a checkbox.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#15Pretty light article, does anyone have any more context? Does this set a strong precedent for all these types of sites? Booking.com wouldn't be the only site reselling airline tickets, in fact I wasn't even aware they did flights. Does Booking.com do something particularly bad compared to something like SkyScanner or Google flights? > "We expect that this ruling will end the internet piracy and overcharging perpetrat…
I could be mistaken, but from what I'm understanding is that Booking.com books the flights for you, by automating the booking process on Ryanair (and subsequently add their own fees), whereas the likes of SkyScanner show you the information, then direct you to the Ryanair website to book through the airline.
Yup, and having needed customer service the one time I booked a flight through booking.com, I can confirm that they absolutely get in the way - a name change on a ticket turned into an almighty rigamarole with charges left right and centre - even though it was booking who had truncated the name - and the airline wouldn’t talk to me directly as I wasn’t the booking party, booking.com was. The airline said the change would have been free if they could do it themselves, but the request had to originate from booking.com, who not only charged nearly €200 but also took so long about it (a week) they were almost too late.
I never thought I’d find myself arguing Ryanair’s corner, but adding booking.com to the mix likely just makes an already poor experience with Ryanair truly dire.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#16pretty bad precedent, id argue that anything thats publicly accesible is free to be scraped. So unless they did something illegal via bypassing security, then this sets a really bad tone for internet archival, web scraping and data collection in the future.
As I understand it, scraping data read-only is fine (Google Flights, Skyscanner etc) but using automated processes to book tickets on behalf of customers without sending them to the Ryanair site is not fine.
And here I was thinking that read-only was part of the definition of scraping?
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
iirc, Ryanair login-walled ticket prices, which means anyone accessing the pricing/booking pages were agreeing to their ToS
I’m not sure that’s what login-walled means (ie I can access pricing and booking pages without logging in) If you search on google you are also agreeing to their terms, there just isn’t a checkbox.
This case is about more than that:
> It says the companies, which use screen-scraping software to find and resell tickets, add additional charges and make it difficult for the airline to contact passengers.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#18Simultaneously being hostile towards users with upselling dark patterns and towards web scappers where everyone is a suspect, that's what most of the web has become.
Mind you, Booking.com is no stranger to using dark patterns itself...
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#19Though I am not a legal expert, it is fascinating, that both European companies had this dispute in front of US courts. One hypothesis would be, that Ryan Air lawyers saw higher chances there than in EU courts.
Isn’t Booking an American company now? The company in Amsterdam is a subsidiary of Delaware company with HQ in Connecticut.
Looks like an American company called Priceline bought booking.com and rename themself after them.
Booking.com brands themself as European, during the DMA debattes and complained they have a disadvantage to American competitors.
Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling
#20I'm not sure why because Ryanair looks really good on the scrapers. I bet it drives a lot of business their way.
That is of course until you add all the additional charges.