easyJet Threatens to Sue Expedia

[mandy]

Budget airline easyJet.co.uk has warned Expedia.co.uk to stop selling its flights via its website or face the possibility of legal action.

An easyJet spokeswoman told The Register yesterday that the UK arm of Expedia, whose parent company is US-based Expedia Inc, has "no business relationship whatsoever" with the holiday e-tail outfit. Despite that, the firm continues to flog easyJet flights at jacked up prices to customers who are presumably none-the-wiser that a “middle-man” is effectively pocketing their hard-earned holiday cash...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/25/...s_expedia/

commentary at TechDirt:

I'm always amazed at people who get pissed off at anyone who makes their products more valuable -- especially when they threaten to sue. Like the whole ridiculousness surrounding the Associated Press threatening a blogger for sending more attention its way, for example. The latest case is even more bizarre, as European discount airline easyJet is threatening to sue various travel websites that send it business. It's difficult to see how this could possibly make any business sense for easyJet...

full article: http://techdirt.com/articles/20080627/1250171538.shtml

[mandy]

A similar case: Ryanair sues Dutch booking site Bravojet alleging screenscraping violates their IP

Ryanair is taking a Dutch airline website to court over the 'screen-scraping' of Ryanair's site. The no-frills airline claims that Dutch company Bravofly's activities violate the site's terms and conditions and infringe its intellectual property rights.

Screen-scraping is the term used for one website's automatic gathering of information from another website. Many websites in the airline and insurance businesses welcome screen-scraping by aggregators as a way of generating new business, but Ryanair opposes the practice...

full article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/09/..._bravofly/