American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other • Hacker News Board

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#221

Post by tantalor » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #45

tantalor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may not ... use the content of the Site for public or commercial purposes That's not what the app was doing: > The app ... had been ‘screen scraping’ accounts for members So it wasn't "public or commercial", it was for people who had accounts to view/manage their account details. Same as Plaid or Mint for banks, or (more generally) any old web browser for literally any website.

It was absolutely "for commercial purposes" for The Points Guy.

I would take "for commercial purposes" to mean aggregating the data for wholesale, or offering some kind of analytics service across users.

Whereas showing ads in the same client where the user is also viewing their own data is incidental. The purpose is to provide a useful intermediary service, and the ads help pay for that service, in much the same way a search engine can reproduce data from websites and show ads at the same time.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#222

Post by dylan604 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:13 PM UTC

alexpotato wrote: post #173

backtoyoujim wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that logic apply to people that sublet rental spaces ?

Some leases specify that sub letting is not allowed and doing some would put the original tenant in breach of the lease agreement.

I'd even say most leases vs some, especially regarding residential. Buying a house for the purposes of renting requires different financing (although most are being bought for cash) than a typical homeowner's financing which has clauses that says the person receiving the financing will use the address as their primary residence.

These things get ridiculously specific.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#223

Post by dylan604 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #114

Glyptodon wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What happens if you hire someone to be your agent at your job?

Typically, aren't new contracts drawn up so that the person you hired is recognized on the other end as well?

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#224

Post by tuckerconnelly » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

KieranMac wrote: post #188

As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District of Texas in particular, has historically been the worst jurisdiction in the country for web scrapers to litigate. Southwest has a long history of litigating successfully there, including two cases from just last year. If TPG is going to win, first they'll nee…

Kieran! Kieran (OP) is a friend of mine, highly competent, and I highly recommend his comprehensive legal guide to web scraping: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to...

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#225

Post by paxys » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:15 PM UTC

hlbjhblbljib wrote: post #208

KieranMac wrote: post #188

As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District of Texas in particular, has historically been the worst jurisdiction in the country for web scrapers to litigate. Southwest has a long history of litigating successfully there, including two cases from just last year. If TPG is going to win, first they'll nee…

I'm surprised more businesses don't ban all of Texas as customers to prevent any litigation happening there.

Banning the second largest user base in the country isn't usually a good business strategy

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#226

Post by dylan604 » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:16 PM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #220

Tostino wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should simply not be enforceable, period. If we had any consumer advocacy in government in the US, this BS would have never even come up.

The US was formed under the premises that adults have the right to make their own decisions - good and bad, and that adults are the masters of their own property. I think these principles have served us pretty well despite the violations of human dignity like not being able to check your AA points from the TPG app.

At the same time, doesn't AA have the right to protect themselves from potential abuse? I don't have a problem at all saying that I'm not supposed to share my credentials with 3rd parties. The user has no control over what the 3rd party might do, and can only make that decision based on what they think they are going to be doing.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#227

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #220

Tostino wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should simply not be enforceable, period. If we had any consumer advocacy in government in the US, this BS would have never even come up.

The US was formed under the premises that adults have the right to make their own decisions - good and bad, and that adults are the masters of their own property. I think these principles have served us pretty well despite the violations of human dignity like not being able to check your AA points from the TPG app.

> The US was formed under the premises that adults have the right to make their own decisions - good and bad, and that adults are the masters of their own property.

Yes, and AA servers, copyrights, and trademarks are all, under the law, it's property, of which it is master.

That's kind of the whole basis of the lawsuit.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#228

Post by divbzero » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

tuckerconnelly wrote: post #224

KieranMac wrote: post #188

As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District of Texas in particular, has historically been the worst jurisdiction in the country for web scrapers to litigate. Southwest has a long history of litigating successfully there, including two cases from just last year. If TPG is going to win, first they'll nee…

Kieran! Kieran (OP) is a friend of mine, highly competent, and I highly recommend his comprehensive legal guide to web scraping: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to...

Thank you sharing the link. I find it amusingly appropriate that viewing this legal guide requires agreeing to Terms & Conditions, but appreciate that it’s one of the shortest Terms & Conditions I’ve ever seen easy to read and understand within seconds.

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#229

Post by KieranMac » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

tuckerconnelly wrote: post #224

KieranMac wrote: post #188

As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District of Texas in particular, has historically been the worst jurisdiction in the country for web scrapers to litigate. Southwest has a long history of litigating successfully there, including two cases from just last year. If TPG is going to win, first they'll nee…

Kieran! Kieran (OP) is a friend of mine, highly competent, and I highly recommend his comprehensive legal guide to web scraping: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to...

Thanks, Tucker!

Re: American Airlines and The Points Guy are suing each other

#230

Post by paxys » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

tiahura wrote: post #213

paxys wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a company write "Chrome is not allowed to access this website" in their terms of service and then sue Google when customers still use it?

Someone else gave a decent answer to your question, but I’m not sure that’s this situation. TPG is scraping AA and then displaying the results in TPG’s app. There’s an http request being sent by a TPG computer and IP address to AA. I think that’s a relevant distinction. I also think that’s relevant to whether TPG is a party to the AA TOS.

I don't think that's an important distinction. TPG could be doing everything locally on the user's device (maybe they are?) and AA's complaint would be no different.