Live data from Hacker News

Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

rte.ie

101–110 of 303 posts

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#101
post #89
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Booking.com's … grip on the market? Do they have a significant grip on the market? I’ve never used them, but for all I know they sell a majority of plane tickets. Then again I haven’t used Ryanair either. The reputations of Ryanair, Spirit etc are sufficient for me to avoid them. But in booking.com’s case I barely even know it exists.

> According to Booking Holdings (Booking.com)'s latest financial reports the company's current revenue (TTM ) is $22.00 B. In 2023 the company made a revenue of $21.36 B an increase over the years 2022 revenue that were of $17.09 B (from a google search)

Is that 1% or 100% of their market? Did they turn a profit?

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#102
Jury Verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18414221/457/ryanair-da...

> Part E: Computer Fraud an Abuse Act Loss

> Did Ryanair prove by a preponderance of evidence that it suffered actual economic harm caused by Booking.com violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, if yes, state the amount.

> X Yes _ No

> $ 5000

> Part E Nominal Damages

> $ 0

> Part F: Punitive Damages

> $0

I know Rynair won the lawsuit but uh, having to pay only 5k sounds like a win for Booking.com

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#103
post #84
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (The highly variable and discriminatory pricing of travel would also best be addressed in regulation, rather than relying entirely on third-party resellers to rescue you.) How difficult would it be to destroy Booking.com's entire businessmodel or at least their grip on the market?

> Booking.com's … grip on the market? Do they have a significant grip on the market? I’ve never used them, but for all I know they sell a majority of plane tickets. Then again I haven’t used Ryanair either. The reputations of Ryanair, Spirit etc are sufficient for me to avoid them. But in booking.com’s case I barely even know it exists.

At least enough grip on the market to get designated as a gatekeeper under the DMA by the EU [0].

[0] https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/13/bookingcom-gatekeep...

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#104
post #44

The reason that Ryanair is against OTAs reselling flights is not the fees, it’s that they’re often resold as a package holiday. Package holidays are flights bundled with hotels etc and are usually sold at much higher margin. Ryanair has its own package holiday business and prefers that they make the margin, not someone else. There are many more package holiday companies than airlines, they want to use this ruling and…

So, basically, Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices. Good for Ryanair, bad for consumers.

This is like standard business methodology these days. Nearly every company prefers this. Just ask any olympian how hard it is to even get to the olympics let alone win.

Business would much rather be proprietary and not have to work that hard.

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#105

Jury Verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18414221/457/ryanair-da... > Part E: Computer Fraud an Abuse Act Loss > Did Ryanair prove by a preponderance of evidence that it suffered actual economic harm caused by Booking.com violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, if yes, state the amount. > X Yes _ No > $ 5000 > Part E Nominal Damages > $ 0 > Part F: Punitive Damages > $0 I know Rynair won the lawsuit…

Yeah but they have to stop doing it

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#106
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is a service where I can just enter from/to which city/airport I want to fly (or in Europe also rail) Try momondo.com. You can add # of luggage (checked in & cabin) and play with some other parameters. They won't, or very rarely will, show train connections. They sometimes show bus connections, though. For train travel I find trainline.com quite good. It gives you an overview over what's available an with whi…

I much prefer to book directly for air and hotels. If something goes wrong, there's one less level of indirection.

On the flip side if something goes wrong you get to discover what $RANDOM_VENDOR in $RANDOM_COUNTRY thinks is a reasonable policy for handling it, which is not usually a big risk for domestic USA travel, but for international travel can be a true wrench in the spokes.

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#107
post #44

The reason that Ryanair is against OTAs reselling flights is not the fees, it’s that they’re often resold as a package holiday. Package holidays are flights bundled with hotels etc and are usually sold at much higher margin. Ryanair has its own package holiday business and prefers that they make the margin, not someone else. There are many more package holiday companies than airlines, they want to use this ruling and…

So, basically, Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices. Good for Ryanair, bad for consumers.

Booking is just acting as a middleman. Booking flights are still being booked through Ryanair, which was part of the suit.

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#108

Jury Verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18414221/457/ryanair-da... > Part E: Computer Fraud an Abuse Act Loss > Did Ryanair prove by a preponderance of evidence that it suffered actual economic harm caused by Booking.com violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, if yes, state the amount. > X Yes _ No > $ 5000 > Part E Nominal Damages > $ 0 > Part F: Punitive Damages > $0 I know Rynair won the lawsuit…

This sets a precedent going forward that will impact Booking.com and many other services that do the same thing.

I would imagine that it is also a nice foundation for cases against AI training data scraped from sites.

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#109

Can someone clarify what "access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation" actually means? Are they referring to programmatic account creation?

I'd love to read the full text of the judgement, as the news articles and press releases are vague as to how the ruling was reached.

My assumption is that the issue was not about automation/scraping, but rather, the way in which booking.com engaged in scraping amounted to some kind of fraud.

Re: Ryanair wins screen scraping case against Booking.com in US court ruling

#110
post #44

The reason that Ryanair is against OTAs reselling flights is not the fees, it’s that they’re often resold as a package holiday. Package holidays are flights bundled with hotels etc and are usually sold at much higher margin. Ryanair has its own package holiday business and prefers that they make the margin, not someone else. There are many more package holiday companies than airlines, they want to use this ruling and…

So, basically, Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices. Good for Ryanair, bad for consumers.

>Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices.

This is the goal of almost every business and that isn't against the free market it is the free market and the precise reason we have regulators to ensure competition.

Post reply on HN