24 ms·

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

288 points by rodhan 2y ago

fungi 2y ago
https://www.ryanair.com/robots.txt https://www.ryanair.com/robots.txt
nsjoz 2y ago
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betepeppers 2y ago
I don't think screen scraping should be illegal unless there is a form in the way requiring interactive acceptance of terms. Of course, now with AI that's a different story, but barring AI scraping a page for data should not be illegal just because the company wants to sell you API access.
snowpid 2y ago
Though 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.
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  Isn’t Booking an American company now? The company in Amsterdam is a subsidiary of Delaware company with HQ in Connecticut.
  - snowpid 2y ago
    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.
  - hellweaver666 2y ago
    Booking.com BV is a Dutch Company which has subsidiaries all over the world but is also itself a subsidiary of Booking Holdings Group which also owns Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable and quite a few more companies.
  - em500 2y ago
    Company nationality is a somewhat diffuse concept. IKEA, Chrysler, Fiat and Citroen have holding companies in the Netherlands. Should they be considered Dutch companies? Share owners (also of American listed and incorporated companies) are from all over the world.
    - ivan_gammel 2y ago
      It depends, right? In case of Booking, aren’t other subsidiaries also selling airline tickets? It would be reasonable for all those sites to have a common platform for data and that means the holding company is the right target to sue.
doix 2y ago
Pretty 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 perpetrated on both airlines and other travel companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA (online travel agent) Pirates," Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said. Why is it almost always cheaper to buy through some weird 3rd party than with the airline directly? Sometimes it's a few bucks and I book with the airline directly, but sometimes it's over $50 cheaper to book through some 3rd party I've never heard of.
- figmert 2y ago
  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.
  - doix 2y ago
    You're right, I was mixing concepts. SkyScanner and Google flights both do what you say. The companies that SkyScanner and co find are what Ryanair are complaining about. So the likes of; Trip, MyTrip, Kiwi, Expedia, GoToGate etc. I wonder if this will affect all of them.
    - philipwhiuk 2y ago
      GoToGate is what booking.com flights actually are (at least last time I booked). So probably.
      - gruez 2y ago
        Wikipedia says they did it at some point, but stopped. >GoToGate was used for a time as the flight provider for Booking.com for various European countries.[7]
trte9343r4 2y ago
There was similar case with Kiwi.com. Issue was that Kiwi pocketed refounds, would not inform customers of flight changes, changing baggage was very hard... Ryanair service is OK (if you take it as a bus company). There do no play dead as Airbnb support. During covid they provided refunds sooner than Lufthanza for example.
cactusplant7374 2y ago
Did Ryanair try blocking their IP’s or adding captchas? Or did they sue because the cat and mouse game became too much?
- walthamstow 2y ago
  If you play the whackamole game with IP blocking and captchas, you'll be playing it forever. A court ruling against the practice is much more effective.
- pickledoyster 2y ago
  iirc, Ryanair login-walled ticket prices, which means anyone accessing the pricing/booking pages were agreeing to their ToS
  - Closi 2y ago
    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.
    - codetrotter 2y ago
      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.
      - benj111 2y ago
        What it's 'about' (according to one side) and the law involved are 2 separate things. When I buy something from the supermarket, they add charges and make it difficult for the manufacturer to contact me directly, so that isn't illegal. Many things with bad outcomes are legal. Breaking the terms of service of the site may be illegal, and if you're mis representing yourself to log in, even more so. But then you're also moving away from what I would term screen scraping.
always_learning 2y ago
pretty 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.
- walthamstow 2y ago
  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.
  - rob74 2y ago
    And here I was thinking that read-only was part of the definition of scraping?
    - tgv 2y ago
      The article mentions reselling.
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      Yeah, it's not a terribly well-written article, and _Ryanair_ is certainly trying to push the line that this is about scraping, but it's hard to imagine that the _resale_ thing wasn't a significant part of the case.
  - skissane 2y ago
    If the ruling (which I haven't read) says automated booking via screen scraping is illegal: wouldn't a workaround be to replace the automated process with a human in a low-cost country?
    - hellweaver666 2y ago
      That sounds like a very Amazon-esque solution!
lifestyleguru 2y ago
Simultaneously 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.
- rob74 2y ago
  Mind you, Booking.com is no stranger to using dark patterns itself...
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    I'm avoiding them at all cost, unfortunately I'm unable to avoid airline reservation websites and apps
  - 2rsf 2y ago
    Even more than Ryanair, they are on the verge of cheating in the search and order process while Ryanair "merely" shows aggressive offers.
teeheelol 2y ago
I'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.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  Consider the business it drives away from Ryanair by the price raise.
- surfingdino 2y ago
  You can fly for not a lot of money on Ryanair, their fee structure, website, and app are similar to all other budget airlines. Those extra fees are for handling your luggage (extra manpower and fuel). If you want to complain about Ryanair's fees, get hold of the Fees Schedule for the airport you fly from and to. You will learn how much airports charge for landing, parking, hangarage, handling, fuel, etc. It's an eye-opening read.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Ryanair's claim was that Booking.com etc was reselling its seats, adding its own charges on top, and providing false passenger details. It's in Ryanair's interest to portray this as basically a screen scraping case (because Ryanair don't like screen scraping in general), but there does seem to be more to it than just that.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    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.
    - 2rsf 2y ago
      I am not sure what "dark patterns and brainwashing" are you referring to, I booked flights through Norwegian- a calm scandinavian low cost company, and had to say no many times to car and hotel offers. The same when renting cars from big companies.
arghwhat 2y ago
> 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 or other service aspects, 3. Add your own profit. I don't think this sets any precedent against scraping on its own. (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.)
- silexia 2y ago
  Why does anyone still do business in Delaware after the ridiculous court judgement against Elon and now this?
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > 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, bookingcom acts as a user agent in my service so why should Ryanair have any legal basis on preventing bookingcom from doing so?! Side note: Where is a service where I can just enter from/to which city/airport I want to fly (or in Europe also rail), what luggage and passengers I carry, and it spits me out the cheapest price offered for the route and sells me the ticket(s) without having to create individual accounts, spread payment info around and try to fight myself through a shitton of dark patterns, broken English and constantly changing UIs? I know this shit is possible, travel agents live and breathe for that stuff, but I'd like to do that myself instead of getting upselled by the travel agent. Rail and flight should be dumb pipes.
  - dudeinjapan 2y ago
    To answer side question: try skiplagged.com
Oras 2y ago
I always thought booking sites had partnerships with airlines and using an API!
- michaelt 2y ago
  Most airlines have partnerships with booking sites, provide an API, pay the booking site a commission, and have a pricing structure that lets them profitably sell tickets at the advertised prices. Ryanair doesn't pay a commission to booking sites, and their pricing model is to advertise $15 flights but making booking an obstacle course so plenty of passengers find themselves paying $60 instead. They therefore don't provide an API for the booking sites to use.
dhx 2y ago
It appears the latest opinion may not yet be published for this case 20-cv-01191-LPS, Ryanair DAC v. Booking Holdings Inc. et al, United States District Court of Delaware. This is the first opinion on the case from 2021 which denied Booking Holdings Inc request to dismiss: [1] https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/20-cv-01191-LPS.pdf https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/20-cv-... Ryanair (Irish company) makes one claim against Delaware corporation Booking Holdings Inc (including subsidiaries Kayak Software Corporation and Priceline LLC as Delaware corporations and Agoda as a Singaporean company) citing 18 USC 1030(a)(2)(C), (a)(4) and (a)(5)(A)-(C)[2]. Amongst reasons to seek dismissal of the case, Booking Holdings Inc name drops Etraveli, Mystifly and Travelfusion as the three companies which were used by Booking Holdings Inc to scrape airline websites including Ryanair's website. It's hard from just this opinion to figure out what exactly Booking Holdings Inc, Etraveli, Mystifly and/or Travelfusion may have been found to do wrong. It sounds most likely that Ryanair may have successfully argued their public website is a "protected computer" because there is a "By clicking search you agree to the Website Terms of Use" button on their main website search form, and the ToS is the form of "protection". Looking behind the scenes, it's a fairly simple "anonymous token" API request without any secrets being required to ask the API to respond. Deleting the HTML elements from the DOM that provide the "By clicking search you agree.." and the associated checkbox doesn't prevent the form from being submitted and results returned successfully. [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
- qingcharles 2y ago
  Didn't the HiQ case rule that under the federal CFAA at least, the ToS isn't a form of protection? Here in Illinois, at least, they make it up to a felony to violate a web site ToS, and it's specifically worded as such in the statute.
bradvl 2y ago
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 the fact that they also own an airline to restrict competition and make more money.
- mejutoco 2y ago
  Or selling insurance, renting a car, etc.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  So, basically, Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices. Good for Ryanair, bad for consumers.
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    Booking is just acting as a middleman. Booking flights are still being booked through Ryanair, which was part of the suit.
  - zie 2y ago
    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.
  - s_dev 2y ago
    >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.
  - hbosch 2y ago
    Booking.com isn't the market force keeping Ryanair's prices down.
b800h 2y ago
So this was a criminal offence. Who goes to jail?
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
I had always assumed Booking.com had some resale agreement with hotels and airlines - there was always some weird issue where if I called a hotel and asked for a room it was more expensive than booking.com or was not available yet was on booking.com What gets me is why on Earth any provider would allow this - dealing direct is so much more sane 99% of the time, and a package holiday provider already has a reseller agreement. Just stomp booking.com into the ground - I simply don’t understand why hotels and airlines don’t do it?
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Hotel owners like working with booking, and yes, they have resale agreements with all hotels and other accommodation providers they list on their website.
- jsiepkes 2y ago
  > Just stomp booking.com into the ground - I simply don’t understand why hotels and airlines don’t do it? Classic prisoners dillema. The problem is all the hotels, etc. need to be on the same page.
  - lifeisstillgood 2y ago
    No that’s the search engine trap - which hotel shall I go to is a map not a search page. It’s a marketing exercise - which influencer, which email drop, which word of mouth. It’s everything that was before Google captured all the advertising revenue there ever was. And reduced it to a list on a black ink on white page Airlines are in a race to the bottom because there are only 8 bits in the 1970s booking system so there is only a competition on seat price. Chnage that to be able to have different parameters and we compete on other factors If hotels are just competing for price on booking.com then they are heading to the same trap - beautiful architecture, fantastic location, smiling staff, 1950s movie stars making films in the courtyard- none of it matters if it’s price per room in NYC. The only way cows stop being treated like cattle is to make sure every human sees them as individuals - it’s a lot of work. But the struggle is worth the abbatoir.
- robjan 2y ago
RyanHamilton 2y ago
I was at a startup event last year where someone that had been very senior and instrumental in Ryanair starting was talking to a small audience (<40 people). He told the story of how they didn't notice booking.com was "stealing" so much of their profit. To rephrase his words: "We gave those guys free advertising on our site and without us realising they were quickly making more profit per head than we were. Before we noticed and could do anything they had gotten too big to effectively cut off." So it's funny to see this posted and that the frenemy fight continues to this day.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  The “free advertising” has little impact on profits from flight tickets, as most aggregators don’t sell at a huge markup. He’s probably thinking of revenue Booking made from hotel bookings, where margins are way higher - but that’s not really taking away revenue from the flight company (and they get affiliate agreements to earn back a significant chunk of that). > too big to effectively cut off This is also true for the hotel industry, and is part of their moat. Smaller hotels especially can have the bulk of their revenue coming from aggregators, so they can’t drop the platform regardless of how much they like it or not. Building your own marketing channels is hard and expensive.
- dzonga 2y ago
  skyscanner would list ryanair traffic on their sites. even though they don't make money from ryanair via click referrals but because of the traffic that ryanair brings.
sega_sai 2y ago
If it was up to me, I would have required all airlines publish their fares in machine readable format.
- chrisjj 2y ago
  Ryanair does. The machine is yours running a browser.
- maronato 2y ago
  Displaying the fares in a separate website isn’t the problem. The resale of tickets is, since other aggregators need to pay Ryanair a license fee to resell, and Booking is avoiding that by using RPA
- dmbaggett 2y ago
  They were once required to do so (and may still be; I’m not sure at this point), at least if they want to offer flights to or from the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATPCO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATPCO However, interpreting this data properly is decidedly nontrivial (>1M LoC). Pricing does not imply booking is OK, though. And even circa 1999, Southwest hassled us (ITA Software) about even showing their fares, without us offering any way to book any flights on any carrier.
Havoc 2y ago
How does the fraud part come in here? Not seeing it
- chrisjj 2y ago
  When buying the ticket, Booking.com pretends to Ryanair to be the customer.
  - Havoc 2y ago
    I see. You’d need to be pretty daft to think the booking website is Ryanair but yeah I guess
    - chrisjj 2y ago
      That is not the deception. You see a Booking.com page offering a Ryanair ticket. The one deceived is Ryanair, when it gets an order from Booking.com pretending to be you.
      - Havoc 2y ago
        ah gotcha. That makes more sense
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
Can someone clarify what "access parts of Ryanair's website without authorisation" actually means? Are they referring to programmatic account creation?
- nness 2y ago
  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.
lesuorac 2y ago
Jury Verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18414221/457/ryanair-dac-v-booking-holdings-inc/ 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
- eli 2y ago
  Yeah but they have to stop doing it
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    Or what? They'll have to pay another 5k for 4 years of access (lawsuit was filed in 2020)?
    - mywittyname 2y ago
      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.
    - eli 2y ago
      At the least, they would find out real fast how big those punitive damages can get when it's a repeated and willful violation. CFAA isn't a joke - there are potential criminal penalties to executives and others within the company.
      - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
        Could you give examples please. I looked at Wikipedia [0] and did a quick Google but didn't turn up any examples of punishment of C-suite in these circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
soci 2y ago
> 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. AFAIK, it's impossible to resell flight tickets in EU, they are attached to real names that are checked upon boarding time. If wonder how did Booking manage to resell Ryanair tickets at scale?
- chrisjj 2y ago
  By injecting the real names. Hence fraud.
- gopher2000 2y ago
  Do they buy-and-resell or do they just provide a front for the ticket-buying flow with their own fees added on top?
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    The latter.
steelframe 2y ago
Did I miss something about what the term "internet piracy" means? From TFA: > "We expect that this ruling will end the internet piracy and overcharging perpetrated on both airlines and other travel companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA (online travel agent) Pirates," Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said. I thought piracy was distributing unauthorized copies of things like music and videos. Wouldn't booking.com's actions be closer to unauthorized ticket brokering? I guess if you want to demonize someone for doing something you don't like it sounds worse to be labeled a "pirate" than an "unauthorized broker."
rolph 2y ago
this looks like scalping to me. [the airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, has in recent years launched a series of legal actions against third-party booking platforms that resell its tickets without permission. 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.]
codersfocus 2y ago
Why are two European companies suing eachother in a US court? Ryanair doesn’t even serve the US, right?
hipadev23 2y ago
This will very likely be overturned as it flies in the face of the 9th circuit court decision on HiQ vs LinkedIn. This is in a different circuit, so it'll need to be elevated, but CFAA is absolutely the incorrect tool to be utilized here. [1] https://calawyers.org/privacy-law/ninth-circuit-holds-data-scraping-is-legal-in-hiq-v-linkedin/ https://calawyers.org/privacy-law/ninth-circuit-holds-data-s...
- inopinatus 2y ago
  We may well find that this matter doesn't ultimately hinge on screen-scraping as much as it does deceptive behaviour by an agent.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  Or the 9ths decision gets overturned...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- jcranmer 2y ago
  I haven't followed the facts of this case, and I haven't found any quickly online. The best I have is the order on the motion to dismiss [1], which covers why the judge thought HiQ v LinkedIn wasn't sufficient prior precedent to preclude this being a CFAA violation, along with Ryanair's motion for summary judgement [2] which suggests the results of discovery. The short answer is... uh, not much. The order on the motion to dismiss suggests that to violate the CFAA, there is a requirement that you're specifically bypassing some form of access control, and it says the complaint sufficiently alleges such control (specifically password-protects internet accounts). Which... is a somewhat weak argument, but the judge here seems to think that HiQ is narrowly focused on "what's publicly available without requiring users to authenticate themselves." The motion for summary judgement states: > Booking and Kayak admit that their access was intentional, and there are no factual disputes that Booking’s and Kayak’s access circumvents authentication mechanisms implemented by Ryanair specifically to keep Defendants out. which, again, is vague on what those authentication mechanisms were, and it's not like this article provides any elucidation. It's far from certain that this will be overturned on appeal, but "creating an account to use for screen scraping" doesn't sound like something that CFAA prohibits. [1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.73139/gov.uscourts.ded.73139.105.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.731... [2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.73139/gov.uscourts.ded.73139.354.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.731...
poikroequ 2y ago
I suspect there are lots of details and context absent from this article. It's hard to believe this is only about booking.com scraping Ryanair's website. What part of it was "unauthorized", exactly? While it's generally legal in the US to scrape publicly available information, that doesn't translate scraping info that requires logging into an account first. It seems the bigger issue at hand may be booking.com purchasing the tickets and adding a lot of hidden fees on top.
nullfrigid 2y ago
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288 points by rodhan 2y ago

fungi 2y ago

https://www.ryanair.com/robots.txt https://www.ryanair.com/robots.txt

nsjoz 2y ago

[dead]

betepeppers 2y ago

I don't think screen scraping should be illegal unless there is a form in the way requiring interactive acceptance of terms. Of course, now with AI that's a different story, but barring AI scraping a page for data should not be illegal just because the company wants to sell you API access.

snowpid 2y ago

Though 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.

ivan_gammel 2y ago
Isn’t Booking an American company now? The company in Amsterdam is a subsidiary of Delaware company with HQ in Connecticut.
- snowpid 2y ago
  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.
- hellweaver666 2y ago
  Booking.com BV is a Dutch Company which has subsidiaries all over the world but is also itself a subsidiary of Booking Holdings Group which also owns Priceline, Kayak, OpenTable and quite a few more companies.
- em500 2y ago
  Company nationality is a somewhat diffuse concept. IKEA, Chrysler, Fiat and Citroen have holding companies in the Netherlands. Should they be considered Dutch companies? Share owners (also of American listed and incorporated companies) are from all over the world.
  - ivan_gammel 2y ago
    It depends, right? In case of Booking, aren’t other subsidiaries also selling airline tickets? It would be reasonable for all those sites to have a common platform for data and that means the holding company is the right target to sue.

doix 2y ago

Pretty 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 perpetrated on both airlines and other travel companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA (online travel agent) Pirates," Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said. Why is it almost always cheaper to buy through some weird 3rd party than with the airline directly? Sometimes it's a few bucks and I book with the airline directly, but sometimes it's over $50 cheaper to book through some 3rd party I've never heard of.

figmert 2y ago
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.
- doix 2y ago
  You're right, I was mixing concepts. SkyScanner and Google flights both do what you say. The companies that SkyScanner and co find are what Ryanair are complaining about. So the likes of; Trip, MyTrip, Kiwi, Expedia, GoToGate etc. I wonder if this will affect all of them.
  - philipwhiuk 2y ago
    GoToGate is what booking.com flights actually are (at least last time I booked). So probably.
    - gruez 2y ago
      Wikipedia says they did it at some point, but stopped. >GoToGate was used for a time as the flight provider for Booking.com for various European countries.[7]

trte9343r4 2y ago

There was similar case with Kiwi.com. Issue was that Kiwi pocketed refounds, would not inform customers of flight changes, changing baggage was very hard... Ryanair service is OK (if you take it as a bus company). There do no play dead as Airbnb support. During covid they provided refunds sooner than Lufthanza for example.

cactusplant7374 2y ago

Did Ryanair try blocking their IP’s or adding captchas? Or did they sue because the cat and mouse game became too much?

walthamstow 2y ago
If you play the whackamole game with IP blocking and captchas, you'll be playing it forever. A court ruling against the practice is much more effective.
pickledoyster 2y ago
iirc, Ryanair login-walled ticket prices, which means anyone accessing the pricing/booking pages were agreeing to their ToS
- Closi 2y ago
  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.
  - codetrotter 2y ago
    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.
    - benj111 2y ago
      What it's 'about' (according to one side) and the law involved are 2 separate things. When I buy something from the supermarket, they add charges and make it difficult for the manufacturer to contact me directly, so that isn't illegal. Many things with bad outcomes are legal. Breaking the terms of service of the site may be illegal, and if you're mis representing yourself to log in, even more so. But then you're also moving away from what I would term screen scraping.

always_learning 2y ago

pretty 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.

walthamstow 2y ago
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.
- rob74 2y ago
  And here I was thinking that read-only was part of the definition of scraping?
  - tgv 2y ago
    The article mentions reselling.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Yeah, it's not a terribly well-written article, and _Ryanair_ is certainly trying to push the line that this is about scraping, but it's hard to imagine that the _resale_ thing wasn't a significant part of the case.
- skissane 2y ago
  If the ruling (which I haven't read) says automated booking via screen scraping is illegal: wouldn't a workaround be to replace the automated process with a human in a low-cost country?
  - hellweaver666 2y ago
    That sounds like a very Amazon-esque solution!

lifestyleguru 2y ago

Simultaneously 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.

rob74 2y ago
Mind you, Booking.com is no stranger to using dark patterns itself...
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  I'm avoiding them at all cost, unfortunately I'm unable to avoid airline reservation websites and apps
- 2rsf 2y ago
  Even more than Ryanair, they are on the verge of cheating in the search and order process while Ryanair "merely" shows aggressive offers.

teeheelol 2y ago

I'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.

chrisjj 2y ago
Consider the business it drives away from Ryanair by the price raise.
surfingdino 2y ago
You can fly for not a lot of money on Ryanair, their fee structure, website, and app are similar to all other budget airlines. Those extra fees are for handling your luggage (extra manpower and fuel). If you want to complain about Ryanair's fees, get hold of the Fees Schedule for the airport you fly from and to. You will learn how much airports charge for landing, parking, hangarage, handling, fuel, etc. It's an eye-opening read.
rsynnott 2y ago
Ryanair's claim was that Booking.com etc was reselling its seats, adding its own charges on top, and providing false passenger details. It's in Ryanair's interest to portray this as basically a screen scraping case (because Ryanair don't like screen scraping in general), but there does seem to be more to it than just that.
- ta1243 2y ago
  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.
  - 2rsf 2y ago
    I am not sure what "dark patterns and brainwashing" are you referring to, I booked flights through Norwegian- a calm scandinavian low cost company, and had to say no many times to car and hotel offers. The same when renting cars from big companies.

arghwhat 2y ago

> 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 or other service aspects, 3. Add your own profit. I don't think this sets any precedent against scraping on its own. (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.)

silexia 2y ago
Why does anyone still do business in Delaware after the ridiculous court judgement against Elon and now this?
mschuster91 2y ago
> 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, bookingcom acts as a user agent in my service so why should Ryanair have any legal basis on preventing bookingcom from doing so?! Side note: Where is a service where I can just enter from/to which city/airport I want to fly (or in Europe also rail), what luggage and passengers I carry, and it spits me out the cheapest price offered for the route and sells me the ticket(s) without having to create individual accounts, spread payment info around and try to fight myself through a shitton of dark patterns, broken English and constantly changing UIs? I know this shit is possible, travel agents live and breathe for that stuff, but I'd like to do that myself instead of getting upselled by the travel agent. Rail and flight should be dumb pipes.
- dudeinjapan 2y ago
  To answer side question: try skiplagged.com

Oras 2y ago

I always thought booking sites had partnerships with airlines and using an API!

michaelt 2y ago
Most airlines have partnerships with booking sites, provide an API, pay the booking site a commission, and have a pricing structure that lets them profitably sell tickets at the advertised prices. Ryanair doesn't pay a commission to booking sites, and their pricing model is to advertise $15 flights but making booking an obstacle course so plenty of passengers find themselves paying $60 instead. They therefore don't provide an API for the booking sites to use.

dhx 2y ago

It appears the latest opinion may not yet be published for this case 20-cv-01191-LPS, Ryanair DAC v. Booking Holdings Inc. et al, United States District Court of Delaware. This is the first opinion on the case from 2021 which denied Booking Holdings Inc request to dismiss: [1] https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/20-cv-01191-LPS.pdf https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/20-cv-... Ryanair (Irish company) makes one claim against Delaware corporation Booking Holdings Inc (including subsidiaries Kayak Software Corporation and Priceline LLC as Delaware corporations and Agoda as a Singaporean company) citing 18 USC 1030(a)(2)(C), (a)(4) and (a)(5)(A)-(C)[2]. Amongst reasons to seek dismissal of the case, Booking Holdings Inc name drops Etraveli, Mystifly and Travelfusion as the three companies which were used by Booking Holdings Inc to scrape airline websites including Ryanair's website. It's hard from just this opinion to figure out what exactly Booking Holdings Inc, Etraveli, Mystifly and/or Travelfusion may have been found to do wrong. It sounds most likely that Ryanair may have successfully argued their public website is a "protected computer" because there is a "By clicking search you agree to the Website Terms of Use" button on their main website search form, and the ToS is the form of "protection". Looking behind the scenes, it's a fairly simple "anonymous token" API request without any secrets being required to ask the API to respond. Deleting the HTML elements from the DOM that provide the "By clicking search you agree.." and the associated checkbox doesn't prevent the form from being submitted and results returned successfully. [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

qingcharles 2y ago
Didn't the HiQ case rule that under the federal CFAA at least, the ToS isn't a form of protection? Here in Illinois, at least, they make it up to a felony to violate a web site ToS, and it's specifically worded as such in the statute.

bradvl 2y ago

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 the fact that they also own an airline to restrict competition and make more money.

mejutoco 2y ago
Or selling insurance, renting a car, etc.
oneshtein 2y ago
So, basically, Ryanair is against free market. They want to have monopoly, to raise prices. Good for Ryanair, bad for consumers.
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  Booking is just acting as a middleman. Booking flights are still being booked through Ryanair, which was part of the suit.
- zie 2y ago
  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.
- s_dev 2y ago
  >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.
- hbosch 2y ago
  Booking.com isn't the market force keeping Ryanair's prices down.

b800h 2y ago

So this was a criminal offence. Who goes to jail?

lifeisstillgood 2y ago

I had always assumed Booking.com had some resale agreement with hotels and airlines - there was always some weird issue where if I called a hotel and asked for a room it was more expensive than booking.com or was not available yet was on booking.com What gets me is why on Earth any provider would allow this - dealing direct is so much more sane 99% of the time, and a package holiday provider already has a reseller agreement. Just stomp booking.com into the ground - I simply don’t understand why hotels and airlines don’t do it?

carlosjobim 2y ago
Hotel owners like working with booking, and yes, they have resale agreements with all hotels and other accommodation providers they list on their website.
jsiepkes 2y ago
> Just stomp booking.com into the ground - I simply don’t understand why hotels and airlines don’t do it? Classic prisoners dillema. The problem is all the hotels, etc. need to be on the same page.
- lifeisstillgood 2y ago
  No that’s the search engine trap - which hotel shall I go to is a map not a search page. It’s a marketing exercise - which influencer, which email drop, which word of mouth. It’s everything that was before Google captured all the advertising revenue there ever was. And reduced it to a list on a black ink on white page Airlines are in a race to the bottom because there are only 8 bits in the 1970s booking system so there is only a competition on seat price. Chnage that to be able to have different parameters and we compete on other factors If hotels are just competing for price on booking.com then they are heading to the same trap - beautiful architecture, fantastic location, smiling staff, 1950s movie stars making films in the courtyard- none of it matters if it’s price per room in NYC. The only way cows stop being treated like cattle is to make sure every human sees them as individuals - it’s a lot of work. But the struggle is worth the abbatoir.
robjan 2y ago

RyanHamilton 2y ago

I was at a startup event last year where someone that had been very senior and instrumental in Ryanair starting was talking to a small audience (<40 people). He told the story of how they didn't notice booking.com was "stealing" so much of their profit. To rephrase his words: "We gave those guys free advertising on our site and without us realising they were quickly making more profit per head than we were. Before we noticed and could do anything they had gotten too big to effectively cut off." So it's funny to see this posted and that the frenemy fight continues to this day.

ricardobeat 2y ago
The “free advertising” has little impact on profits from flight tickets, as most aggregators don’t sell at a huge markup. He’s probably thinking of revenue Booking made from hotel bookings, where margins are way higher - but that’s not really taking away revenue from the flight company (and they get affiliate agreements to earn back a significant chunk of that). > too big to effectively cut off This is also true for the hotel industry, and is part of their moat. Smaller hotels especially can have the bulk of their revenue coming from aggregators, so they can’t drop the platform regardless of how much they like it or not. Building your own marketing channels is hard and expensive.
dzonga 2y ago
skyscanner would list ryanair traffic on their sites. even though they don't make money from ryanair via click referrals but because of the traffic that ryanair brings.

sega_sai 2y ago

If it was up to me, I would have required all airlines publish their fares in machine readable format.

chrisjj 2y ago
Ryanair does. The machine is yours running a browser.
maronato 2y ago
Displaying the fares in a separate website isn’t the problem. The resale of tickets is, since other aggregators need to pay Ryanair a license fee to resell, and Booking is avoiding that by using RPA
dmbaggett 2y ago
They were once required to do so (and may still be; I’m not sure at this point), at least if they want to offer flights to or from the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATPCO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATPCO However, interpreting this data properly is decidedly nontrivial (>1M LoC). Pricing does not imply booking is OK, though. And even circa 1999, Southwest hassled us (ITA Software) about even showing their fares, without us offering any way to book any flights on any carrier.

Havoc 2y ago

How does the fraud part come in here? Not seeing it

chrisjj 2y ago
When buying the ticket, Booking.com pretends to Ryanair to be the customer.
- Havoc 2y ago
  I see. You’d need to be pretty daft to think the booking website is Ryanair but yeah I guess
  - chrisjj 2y ago
    That is not the deception. You see a Booking.com page offering a Ryanair ticket. The one deceived is Ryanair, when it gets an order from Booking.com pretending to be you.
    - Havoc 2y ago
      ah gotcha. That makes more sense

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

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

nness 2y ago
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.

lesuorac 2y ago

Jury Verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18414221/457/ryanair-dac-v-booking-holdings-inc/ 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

eli 2y ago
Yeah but they have to stop doing it
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Or what? They'll have to pay another 5k for 4 years of access (lawsuit was filed in 2020)?
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    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.
  - eli 2y ago
    At the least, they would find out real fast how big those punitive damages can get when it's a repeated and willful violation. CFAA isn't a joke - there are potential criminal penalties to executives and others within the company.
    - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
      Could you give examples please. I looked at Wikipedia [0] and did a quick Google but didn't turn up any examples of punishment of C-suite in these circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act

soci 2y ago

> 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. AFAIK, it's impossible to resell flight tickets in EU, they are attached to real names that are checked upon boarding time. If wonder how did Booking manage to resell Ryanair tickets at scale?

chrisjj 2y ago
By injecting the real names. Hence fraud.
gopher2000 2y ago
Do they buy-and-resell or do they just provide a front for the ticket-buying flow with their own fees added on top?
- chrisjj 2y ago
  The latter.

steelframe 2y ago

Did I miss something about what the term "internet piracy" means? From TFA: > "We expect that this ruling will end the internet piracy and overcharging perpetrated on both airlines and other travel companies and consumers by the unlawful activity of OTA (online travel agent) Pirates," Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said. I thought piracy was distributing unauthorized copies of things like music and videos. Wouldn't booking.com's actions be closer to unauthorized ticket brokering? I guess if you want to demonize someone for doing something you don't like it sounds worse to be labeled a "pirate" than an "unauthorized broker."

rolph 2y ago

this looks like scalping to me. [the airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, has in recent years launched a series of legal actions against third-party booking platforms that resell its tickets without permission. 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.]

codersfocus 2y ago

Why are two European companies suing eachother in a US court? Ryanair doesn’t even serve the US, right?

hipadev23 2y ago

This will very likely be overturned as it flies in the face of the 9th circuit court decision on HiQ vs LinkedIn. This is in a different circuit, so it'll need to be elevated, but CFAA is absolutely the incorrect tool to be utilized here. [1] https://calawyers.org/privacy-law/ninth-circuit-holds-data-scraping-is-legal-in-hiq-v-linkedin/ https://calawyers.org/privacy-law/ninth-circuit-holds-data-s...

inopinatus 2y ago
We may well find that this matter doesn't ultimately hinge on screen-scraping as much as it does deceptive behaviour by an agent.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
Or the 9ths decision gets overturned...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jcranmer 2y ago
I haven't followed the facts of this case, and I haven't found any quickly online. The best I have is the order on the motion to dismiss [1], which covers why the judge thought HiQ v LinkedIn wasn't sufficient prior precedent to preclude this being a CFAA violation, along with Ryanair's motion for summary judgement [2] which suggests the results of discovery. The short answer is... uh, not much. The order on the motion to dismiss suggests that to violate the CFAA, there is a requirement that you're specifically bypassing some form of access control, and it says the complaint sufficiently alleges such control (specifically password-protects internet accounts). Which... is a somewhat weak argument, but the judge here seems to think that HiQ is narrowly focused on "what's publicly available without requiring users to authenticate themselves." The motion for summary judgement states: > Booking and Kayak admit that their access was intentional, and there are no factual disputes that Booking’s and Kayak’s access circumvents authentication mechanisms implemented by Ryanair specifically to keep Defendants out. which, again, is vague on what those authentication mechanisms were, and it's not like this article provides any elucidation. It's far from certain that this will be overturned on appeal, but "creating an account to use for screen scraping" doesn't sound like something that CFAA prohibits. [1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.73139/gov.uscourts.ded.73139.105.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.731... [2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.73139/gov.uscourts.ded.73139.354.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.731...

poikroequ 2y ago

I suspect there are lots of details and context absent from this article. It's hard to believe this is only about booking.com scraping Ryanair's website. What part of it was "unauthorized", exactly? While it's generally legal in the US to scrape publicly available information, that doesn't translate scraping info that requires logging into an account first. It seems the bigger issue at hand may be booking.com purchasing the tickets and adding a lot of hidden fees on top.

nullfrigid 2y ago

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