Why the headline editorialization? "Is screen scraping illegal" isn't in the article headline and scree-scraping isn't mentioned by name. And this case doesn't appear to be generic screen-scraping of a public site, as TPG was using customer credentials to log-in and retrieve info (with permission). The lawsuit is about breach of site T&C.
American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
101–110 of 332 posts
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#102https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/support/legal-infor... "Unless otherwise noted, all information, AAdvantage® account information, articles, data, images, passwords, Personal Identification Numbers ("PINs"), screens, text, user names, Web pages, or other materials (collectively "Content") appearing on the Site are the exclusive property of American Airlines Group, Inc., or American Airlines, Inc., or their su…
Not so fast. Who is "you"?
If I'm understanding the situation correctly (which I may not be) it is AA rewards members who are using TPG's app to access the site. These people give the TPG app their AA login information so it can login to their AA account to get their information.
Arguably it is these AA rewards members who are scraping the site. TPG just supplied the tool those members are using. It would then be the AA rewards members who are the ones who have a contract with the site, not TPG.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#103Interesting that AA frames it as TPG's app stealing confidential customer data, while it is the customer who set up the app and willingly provided their credentials in the first place. Will AA be able to find a single customer who has a problem with what TPG does? What is their case then exactly? Would they similarly sue the app if customers were copy pasting data into it, rather than accessing it programmatically? F…
> What is their case then exactly?
Speculating, but TOS generally say that you're not allowed to share your password with anyone. Assuming that's true for the AA site, AA might argue that TPG is encouraging users to break their TOS ("tortious interference").
Though if app doesn't actually share the password with TPG and just uses it locally there may well be a question of whether entering your password into a third-party app actually counts as sharing it with that party. How exactly would this be different logging in from a web browser? It's just a different kind of user agent. Are Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Apple guilty of tortious interference simply because the software they release has access to your passwords on your own machine and could report them back? (For that matter, they even store the synced passwords on their servers, though in principle those are supposed to be private.)
Of course there could also be specific terms in the TOS against accessing the service with unapproved user agents, independent of any prohibition on sharing credentials.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Personally I don't differentiate between carbon-based and silicon-based eyes. They're both eyes. Also, banning silicon-based eyes should be declared a massive, massive ADA violation.
That's a fairly bizarre and Byzantine approach to legalizing screen scraping. If we want to make screen scraping affirmatively legal, we can simply do that. We don't need to anthropomorphize HTML/JSON parsing as equivalent to human vision, and then declare any efforts to restrict that vision to be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lol.
We should just make it legal, but this seems like a convenient "backdoor" way to do it - either the company site is fully screen-reader enabled 100% or scraping is allowed of any kind.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#105Interesting that AA frames it as TPG's app stealing confidential customer data, while it is the customer who set up the app and willingly provided their credentials in the first place. Will AA be able to find a single customer who has a problem with what TPG does? What is their case then exactly? Would they similarly sue the app if customers were copy pasting data into it, rather than accessing it programmatically? F…
I don’t this matters, from a legal standpoint. The issue isn’t whether or not it’s what the customers wanted. The issue is that TPG wasn’t the party that entered into the agreement with AA when creating the account. I’m not suggesting it’s right or wrong, but that’s the issue.
If I authorize an agent to act on my behalf in a particular way wouldn't they be considered and authorized as me? If I make a contract with Bob to mow my lawn, it's not like Bob's workers or employees have to sign the contract too. TPG shouldn't need to be party to the contract to be an agent of one of the contracted parties.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#106> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…
> Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for all.
people dont like paying and they dont mind ads. they enable a lot of products and services that would otherwise not exist. ads might be a net negative, but they certainly have at least some positives.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#107> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…
Is a website considered a private space (maybe not, but you agree to a TOS when you fly AA)? If so, you should have the right to say how your space is used by others, regardless of if we believe marketing is ethical or not. If AA doesn't want their data being used anywhere else, sounds like they should have the right to do that, just like we have the right to remove people from our private spaces if they do things against our rules. You also have the choice not to fly AA.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#108Interesting that AA frames it as TPG's app stealing confidential customer data, while it is the customer who set up the app and willingly provided their credentials in the first place. Will AA be able to find a single customer who has a problem with what TPG does? What is their case then exactly? Would they similarly sue the app if customers were copy pasting data into it, rather than accessing it programmatically? F…
> What is their case then exactly? Speculating, but TOS generally say that you're not allowed to share your password with anyone. Assuming that's true for the AA site, AA might argue that TPG is encouraging users to break their TOS ("tortious interference"). Though if app doesn't actually share the password with TPG and just uses it locally there may well be a question of whether entering your password into a third-p…
RIP password managers then, I guess
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#109> The interest was monetization of customer eyeballs, an American Airlines source shared that they wanted customers checking accounts at AA.com where they could be marketed to. It seems like so many problems, annoyances and inconvenience in modern society are artificially created/maintained just to enable this disgusting industry. Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for a…
Yeah. Advertising ruins everything. Everything. They are directly and indirectly responsible for the poor state of consumer technology today. Privacy violations? Advertising. Borderline unusable websites? Advertising. Deliberately addictive social media? Advertising. Almost everything that's wrong with computing today is fueled by this industry's entitlement to our attention.
> Imagine how more efficient things could be if this cancer was eradicated once and for all.
Yes!! What I wouldn't give to see this entire industry banned from existence. It would solve so many problems it's ridiculous.
Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t this matters, from a legal standpoint. The issue isn’t whether or not it’s what the customers wanted. The issue is that TPG wasn’t the party that entered into the agreement with AA when creating the account. I’m not suggesting it’s right or wrong, but that’s the issue.
If I authorize an agent to act on my behalf in a particular way wouldn't they be considered and authorized as me? If I make a contract with Bob to mow my lawn, it's not like Bob's workers or employees have to sign the contract too. TPG shouldn't need to be party to the contract to be an agent of one of the contracted parties.
How does that logic apply to people that sublet rental spaces ?