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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

#111

Post by ghaff »

gomox wrote: post #106
ghaff wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe but if $RANDOM_VENDOR isn't willing/able to help, I don't really expect Expedia to. That said, I do use an agent to arrange self-guided walking trips and things like that and they seem to be a useful resource rather than planning and booking the whole thing myself, in part, because a lot of local knowledge can be involved. But that's different from booking 5 nights in some European city.

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

#112

Post by lesuorac »

eli wrote: post #105
lesuorac wrote: post #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…

Yeah but they have to stop doing it

Or what? They'll have to pay another 5k for 4 years of access (lawsuit was filed in 2020)?

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

#113

Post by notresidenter »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
arghwhat wrote: post #22

> A jury in the District Court of Delaware unanimously found that Booking.com violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse act and that it had induced a third party to access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation "with an intent to defraud," the verdict said I imagine this is limited to a scenario where you: 1. Act as a middle-man for the transaction (as this lawsuit was about resale), 2. Interfere with pricing o…

> and that it had induced a third party to access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation "with an intent to defraud," the verdict said Where was the "defraud" happening here? When Ryanair wants to make money on flights they shouldn't offer flight tickets that only make money when they can lure the consumer to purchase addons via a boatload of dark patterns. For me as someone looking to book a flight, bookin…

rome2rio.com comes closest to that experience compared to the other services (not affiliated)

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

#114

Post by nkg »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #79
mschuster91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that it had induced a third party to access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation "with an intent to defraud," the verdict said Where was the "defraud" happening here? When Ryanair wants to make money on flights they shouldn't offer flight tickets that only make money when they can lure the consumer to purchase addons via a boatload of dark patterns. For me as someone looking to book a flight, bookin…

> 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…

>If there's any problem with your flight you're up shit creek if you have to deal via a third party.

I have learned that the hard way. My flight was cancelled and I don't get any notification. There is a real communication issue between OTAs and airlines. After a week of poking the customer service, I got a refund from Opodo, fortunately.

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

#115

Post by mywittyname »

lesuorac wrote: post #112
eli wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but they have to stop doing it

Or what? They'll have to pay another 5k for 4 years of access (lawsuit was filed in 2020)?

Worst case: An injunction is filed and they have to shut down.

Likely outcome: they negotiate a deal with RyanAir for access to their data & API.

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

gumby wrote: post #84
amelius wrote: 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.

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by switch007 »

Toutouxc wrote: post #64
ta1243 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair relies on dark patterns and brainwashing as part of the checkout process to sell you hotels, insurance, car hire, etc. Those feed into their income stream. If you bypass that process they don't make their profit.

I still don't understand, I flew with them last year, and just now I dry-ran booking a flight from Prague to Bologna. The entire thing feels quite streamlined and straightforward. Pick two dates, you're offered flights on or around the dates, you pick the flights, then you pick the "package" (basic, regular, plus, flexi plus) and it shows a HUGE matrix with big fat check marks for stuff you get and no check marks for…

Yes, in their defense, that matrix is an improvement. Though it's not perfect and still intended to fool people: you would expect as you go up the tiers that everything from the previous tier is included but that's not the case: "Plus" doesn't include a carry-on/priority boarding from the "Regular" fare. And the most expensive option "Flexi Plus" doesn't include a checked bag (easy to miss when all other options are included)

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

#118

Post by hbosch »

oneshtein wrote: post #69
bradvl wrote: 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.com isn't the market force keeping Ryanair's prices down.

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

#119

Post by arghwhat »

SoftTalker wrote: post #96
arghwhat wrote: post #22

> A jury in the District Court of Delaware unanimously found that Booking.com violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse act and that it had induced a third party to access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation "with an intent to defraud," the verdict said I imagine this is limited to a scenario where you: 1. Act as a middle-man for the transaction (as this lawsuit was about resale), 2. Interfere with pricing o…

We used to regulate air travel. It was a lot more expensive then.

And you still regulate it, just differently.

The implied conclusion that regulation makes things expensive is wrong, and comparing the air travel market over half a century ago with the market today, and crediting a change made in 1978 for the difference doesn’t make sense.

EU air travel is quite regulated with e.g. consumer rights for cash compensation, hotel and food service in case of delay, and yet air travel reached a point some years before covid where some providers played with the thought of having tickets be free - the main source of income for the airlines was in duty-free on either end of the journey anyway, so more travelers meant more revenue even if their tickets were zero.

Disallowing discriminatory and unfair business practices is not the same as having the government set travel prices.

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

#120

Post by miohtama »

oneshtein wrote: post #69
bradvl wrote: 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 wants to make it harder for consumer to compare prices.
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