4 ms·

If I run a computer system that commits a crime because of a bug, I will be held accountable for my system's actions. For example, I might misconfigure my FTP

by oofabz 12y ago

If I run a computer system that commits a crime because of a bug, I will be held accountable for my system's actions. For example, I might misconfigure my FTP server to include my music collection, facilitating piracy. Or I might write a shopping cart that takes everyone's money and doesn't deliver their product. An "honest mistake" defense won't get you off the hook for these. Since the law applies to everyone equally, airlines should also be responsible for their mistakes. We have laws against false advertising for good reason and if we stop enforcing them, companies will take advantage.

ghaff 12y ago
It's not "false advertising." It's a mistake. Whether or not you agree, it's pretty well established that companies can cancel orders for items that are priced incorrectly--especially if they're in the "so good you must know they're not true" category. It's basically analogous to the signs you see in supermarkets about incorrect pricing in their weekly mailing. Some of the associated legalisms are that the order isn't necessarily consider "accepted" until it goes out for shipment as I understand it. Clawing back money for something that's already been delivered is much much more problematic though.
- darkarmani 12y ago
  > It's not "false advertising." It's a mistake. And yet if the consumer makes a mistake it's a $100 change fee to fix the mistake.
  - dirtae 12y ago
    In the U.S. all airlines allow you to cancel your reservation at no charge within 24 hours of booking, so if you make a mistake, then you can cancel your reservation and make a new one.
    - gergles 12y ago
      Only if the flight is more than 7 days away. And, they make you 'rebook', and as the GP comment said, the fares change on a minute-by-minute basis, so you're probably going to have to pay more.
      - dirtae 12y ago
        You seem to be implying that if you make a mistake while booking a flight, and as a result the airline refunds all of your money, then if you have to pay more for the flight you actually wanted than you would have paid when booking the original (mistaken) flight, the airline has harmed you. Do I have that right? If so, could you explain your theory of how the airline has wronged you?
        landryraccoon 12y ago
        Harm in this context has to be defined legally, not intuitively. If what you are claiming is the case, then there would never be a penalty for breaking a contract, other than not having to fulfill your side of the bargain. But there are tons of ways in which breaking a contract could harm you. Let's take your example, using airline tickets. Imagine you are the purchaser of the tickets, and I am the airline you purchased them from. You might miss the opportunity to book another flight at a cheaper price, since you relied on my promise of a flight, and now you must rebook. You might miss your opportunity to travel at all, or must now change your travel plans, because all of the flights are overbooked. You might have budgeted very carefully, and purchased hotel reservations and a car rental, and now I have cancelled your flight and you cannot afford more expensive tickets because you already purchased a hotel and car, and you are over budget. All of these are reasonable scenarios that I would have encountered traveling, if an airline refused to honor its reservation. This is why contracts have to be honored, and the penalty for breaking a contract is typically more than "you just don't have to honor your side of the contract".
rayiner 12y ago
> For example, I might misconfigure my FTP server to include my music collection, facilitating piracy. Or I might write a shopping cart that takes everyone's money and doesn't deliver their product. An "honest mistake" defense won't get you off the hook for these. Honest mistakes will indeed get you off the hook in your examples. Criminal laws have intent requirements, and honest mistakes usually don't clear the bar for criminal culpability. Now, if the circumstances are such that the jury simply doesn't believe it was an honest mistake, rather than intentional, that's a different issue.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Criminal laws have intent requirements Most criminal laws have mental state requirements, and intent is the highest requirement that criminal laws might have. Many criminal laws do not have intent requirements -- requiring only recklessness or negligence, for instance -- and some are strict liability (requiring only that the prohibited act be done, independent of mental state.) > and honest mistakes usually don't clear the bar for criminal culpability. Honest, but unreasonable, mistakes can clear the bar for crimes with recklessness or negligence requirements rather than intent requirements, and honest and reasonable mistakes do so for ones that are of the strict liability type.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    "Intent requirement" can be used synonymously with "culpability requirement" or "mens rea" (how I used it). Though it can also mean intent rather than recklessness or criminal negligence (how you used it). To me, the "honest" part suggests simple rather than criminal negligence. It's not an "honest mistake" (imho) to lock the doors to a crowded bar from the outside so people perish in a fire. EDIT: Though my wife disagrees about "honest mistake" so there's that.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The CFAA defines no strict-liability crimes, as you well know.
- bigtunacan 12y ago
grkvlt 12y ago
Note that in this case many of the ticket purchasers were held to be "acting in bad faith" since they falsely declared their location as Denmark to obtain the deal proced in DKK, in which case I have no problem with the airline voiding those transactions. When customers act in good faith I agree there is more of an issue.
branchless 12y ago
I really don't like this vulture culture. The main defence seems to be "the airlines are bad too". My six year-old now knows this doesn't cut any ice. This vulture behaviour even extends to ruining small companies. In the UK recently I read of a company on amazon with a far lower price on a product than intended and the twitter crowd were all out demanding the company "honour" the price even though everyone knew it was an error. Amazon were of course siding with the customer but the company was saying it would put them out of business.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  This class of mistake is a cost of doing business when airlines have computers and people playing these ridiculous revenue optimization games. Unlike virtually any other business, it's really difficult to accept the excuse of fare "misprints" when in many cases airlines reprice routes several times per day, or even multiple times per hour. I'm sure that if they were able to say "oops", the number of "mistakes" would spike whenever unexpected demand was encountered. If they have issues with employees fat fingering fares, perhaps they should review the internal controls.
- macNchz 12y ago
  I worked for a tiny online retailer that also did drop shipping for some companies with similar products. Once, someone found a hidden product someone had uploaded as a test: $1500 marked down to $0. It got posted on reddit and hundreds of orders came in all at once. They took the product off their site and canceled all of the orders, but the nastiness and persistence by the people who had placed orders insisting that they deserved this thing for free was mind boggling. There was clearly very little understanding that there were real humans on the other end of this website whose days they were making much more difficult.
- lsaferite 12y ago
  Wasn't that a case of using a dynamic pricing service that went wrong? They abdicated their responsibility for setting prices to let a piece of software set the prices for them instead. If the software did not set the price the way they wanted it is, ultimately, their own fault. In a race to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the market they used dynamic pricing software and got screwed.

by oofabz 12y ago

ghaff 12y ago

It's not "false advertising." It's a mistake. Whether or not you agree, it's pretty well established that companies can cancel orders for items that are priced incorrectly--especially if they're in the "so good you must know they're not true" category. It's basically analogous to the signs you see in supermarkets about incorrect pricing in their weekly mailing. Some of the associated legalisms are that the order isn't necessarily consider "accepted" until it goes out for shipment as I understand it. Clawing back money for something that's already been delivered is much much more problematic though.

darkarmani 12y ago
> It's not "false advertising." It's a mistake. And yet if the consumer makes a mistake it's a $100 change fee to fix the mistake.
- dirtae 12y ago
  In the U.S. all airlines allow you to cancel your reservation at no charge within 24 hours of booking, so if you make a mistake, then you can cancel your reservation and make a new one.
  - gergles 12y ago
    Only if the flight is more than 7 days away. And, they make you 'rebook', and as the GP comment said, the fares change on a minute-by-minute basis, so you're probably going to have to pay more.
    - dirtae 12y ago
      You seem to be implying that if you make a mistake while booking a flight, and as a result the airline refunds all of your money, then if you have to pay more for the flight you actually wanted than you would have paid when booking the original (mistaken) flight, the airline has harmed you. Do I have that right? If so, could you explain your theory of how the airline has wronged you?
      - landryraccoon 12y ago
        Harm in this context has to be defined legally, not intuitively. If what you are claiming is the case, then there would never be a penalty for breaking a contract, other than not having to fulfill your side of the bargain. But there are tons of ways in which breaking a contract could harm you. Let's take your example, using airline tickets. Imagine you are the purchaser of the tickets, and I am the airline you purchased them from. You might miss the opportunity to book another flight at a cheaper price, since you relied on my promise of a flight, and now you must rebook. You might miss your opportunity to travel at all, or must now change your travel plans, because all of the flights are overbooked. You might have budgeted very carefully, and purchased hotel reservations and a car rental, and now I have cancelled your flight and you cannot afford more expensive tickets because you already purchased a hotel and car, and you are over budget. All of these are reasonable scenarios that I would have encountered traveling, if an airline refused to honor its reservation. This is why contracts have to be honored, and the penalty for breaking a contract is typically more than "you just don't have to honor your side of the contract".

rayiner 12y ago

> For example, I might misconfigure my FTP server to include my music collection, facilitating piracy. Or I might write a shopping cart that takes everyone's money and doesn't deliver their product. An "honest mistake" defense won't get you off the hook for these. Honest mistakes will indeed get you off the hook in your examples. Criminal laws have intent requirements, and honest mistakes usually don't clear the bar for criminal culpability. Now, if the circumstances are such that the jury simply doesn't believe it was an honest mistake, rather than intentional, that's a different issue.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Criminal laws have intent requirements Most criminal laws have mental state requirements, and intent is the highest requirement that criminal laws might have. Many criminal laws do not have intent requirements -- requiring only recklessness or negligence, for instance -- and some are strict liability (requiring only that the prohibited act be done, independent of mental state.) > and honest mistakes usually don't clear the bar for criminal culpability. Honest, but unreasonable, mistakes can clear the bar for crimes with recklessness or negligence requirements rather than intent requirements, and honest and reasonable mistakes do so for ones that are of the strict liability type.
- rayiner 12y ago
  "Intent requirement" can be used synonymously with "culpability requirement" or "mens rea" (how I used it). Though it can also mean intent rather than recklessness or criminal negligence (how you used it). To me, the "honest" part suggests simple rather than criminal negligence. It's not an "honest mistake" (imho) to lock the doors to a crowded bar from the outside so people perish in a fire. EDIT: Though my wife disagrees about "honest mistake" so there's that.
- tptacek 12y ago
  The CFAA defines no strict-liability crimes, as you well know.
bigtunacan 12y ago

grkvlt 12y ago

Note that in this case many of the ticket purchasers were held to be "acting in bad faith" since they falsely declared their location as Denmark to obtain the deal proced in DKK, in which case I have no problem with the airline voiding those transactions. When customers act in good faith I agree there is more of an issue.

branchless 12y ago

I really don't like this vulture culture. The main defence seems to be "the airlines are bad too". My six year-old now knows this doesn't cut any ice. This vulture behaviour even extends to ruining small companies. In the UK recently I read of a company on amazon with a far lower price on a product than intended and the twitter crowd were all out demanding the company "honour" the price even though everyone knew it was an error. Amazon were of course siding with the customer but the company was saying it would put them out of business.

Spooky23 12y ago
This class of mistake is a cost of doing business when airlines have computers and people playing these ridiculous revenue optimization games. Unlike virtually any other business, it's really difficult to accept the excuse of fare "misprints" when in many cases airlines reprice routes several times per day, or even multiple times per hour. I'm sure that if they were able to say "oops", the number of "mistakes" would spike whenever unexpected demand was encountered. If they have issues with employees fat fingering fares, perhaps they should review the internal controls.
macNchz 12y ago
I worked for a tiny online retailer that also did drop shipping for some companies with similar products. Once, someone found a hidden product someone had uploaded as a test: $1500 marked down to $0. It got posted on reddit and hundreds of orders came in all at once. They took the product off their site and canceled all of the orders, but the nastiness and persistence by the people who had placed orders insisting that they deserved this thing for free was mind boggling. There was clearly very little understanding that there were real humans on the other end of this website whose days they were making much more difficult.
lsaferite 12y ago
Wasn't that a case of using a dynamic pricing service that went wrong? They abdicated their responsibility for setting prices to let a piece of software set the prices for them instead. If the software did not set the price the way they wanted it is, ultimately, their own fault. In a race to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the market they used dynamic pricing software and got screwed.