easyJet Wants To Sue Websites That Send It Business

from the is-it-illegal-to-help-someone? dept

Fri, Jun 27th 2008 6:15pm — Mike Masnick

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.

Now, obviously, some will claim (as easyJet does) that easyJet should have the right to only sell flights off of its own website. But if these other sites are merely scraping the content and then linking back to easyJet, then what's the problem? These sites are sending more business to easyJet, and it wants to sue them. The lawyer quoted in the article discusses copyright issues (which again, seems to go against what the company should want) and also database rights -- which is recognized in Europe rather than the US. But even if it's true that easyJet has a legal right to block these sites, it still seems like a bad business idea to sue sites for giving you free advertising -- especially when those are the sites people go to when they want to buy airplane tickets.

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Filed Under: business, copyright, database rights, promotions
Companies: easyjet

17 Comments

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Jake, 27 Jun 2008 @ 7:28pm

I'm actually with easyJet on this one. According to a previous article on the subject (www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/25/easyjet_warns_expedia/), Expedia are sticking a substantial surcharge on top of the ticket price and occasionally failing to transmit booking information correctly; easyJet probably went down the database rights path because it was easier to prove than any other rule Expedia broke.
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Steve, 27 Jun 2008 @ 8:12pm

Re: agreed
read the article you pointed to jake and i agree with you. easyjet should sue them if the article mentioned is true.
(www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/25/easyjet_warns_expedia/)
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bobbknight, 27 Jun 2008 @ 11:30pm

I'm With Jake and Steve
The Register is like the local anti capitalist leftist rag printed once a week in Berkley, but if what it says is true I fully support Easy Jets position.
Expedia is acting like ticketmaster, selling easy Jet tickets for more than they are worth and not delivering on the service.
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Jeffry Houser (profile), 28 Jun 2008 @ 3:57am

I'm surprised..
This can be a tricky situation at times. And based on the other comments, it is not as black and white as techdirt made it sound.

I recently discovered someone was syndicating my podcast RSS feed, republishing it to their web site, and throwing Google ads around it. All of this w/o my permission.

Could this bring the podcast more exposure? Potentially! However it bugged me they took my content and threw ads around it. There was no 'value add' for listeners. The site had no contact info and a private registration. It took me a while to track down the 'owners'. I was able to contact them through their "Private registration company" and they removed my feed [much to my surprise].
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willis and michelle cantrell, 28 Jun 2008 @ 6:51am

what article?
"easy you " so what is it back to the walking salesmen. stop the bull,if all the travel agents stop all information on that uh plane ride, it might stop the bull. boy talk about free ads.
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wasnt me, 28 Jun 2008 @ 7:10am

regardless of there reasons, they are allowed not to want to deal with any 3rd parties.

and as already mentioned if said article is true then they are 100% correct to do so.
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joe, 28 Jun 2008 @ 8:14am

Re: I'm surprised..
Next time, save yourself a lot of investigatory effort and replace surprise with certainty.

File a DMCA conforming complaint under that statute's Safe Harbor provision with the offending site's hosting company. The infringing material, and maybe even the thief's entire web site, will come down BANG! without hassle because the host service wants to avoid the $250,000 fine for failure to do so "expeditiously. (That's the word the law uses and it usually is interpreted as right now, no delay, no questions asked.)
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shmengie, 28 Jun 2008 @ 9:32am

possibly a bad decision on easyjet's part. but, it's their bad decision to make. hell, if i want to throw gold bricks in the trash, it's my right.
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Doug, 28 Jun 2008 @ 8:44pm

Re:
Hilarious on the gold bricks !!!
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Grem135, 29 Jun 2008 @ 8:43am

Re:
can you throw them in my trash?... please
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steveballmer, 29 Jun 2008 @ 3:33pm

OUCH!
Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
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ThePeopleGeek, 30 Jun 2008 @ 3:17am

Bravo. EXPEDIA likes to make their victim feel like they are "negotiating" and "connected". I had two problems with them. Both times they blamed the carrier without hearing me out.

Let them buy some planes and sell the seats off of them.
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Nasch, 30 Jun 2008 @ 10:50am

Re: Re: I'm surprised..
The infringing material, and maybe even the thief's entire web site, will come down BANG! without hassle

Yes, where "hassle" means "due process" or "evidence".
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No Fan of EasyJet, 30 Jul 2008 @ 10:40pm

Maybe EasyJet has something to hide
Maybe EasyJet does not want Expedia knowing exactly how its website works. I had the experience of booking (from the States)a flight on EasyJet (in the presence of a third party who was watching the screen with me), and we had the date come back one day different than what we were both so very certain we had just entered. When I looked on their website for a means to contact EasyJet, I could not readily find one, so I had the immediate presence of mind to call my credit card provider even before the provider ever saw the charge go through. My credit card company told me that they were noting this as an immediately disputed transaction, but that I would still need to contact the vendor to have them reverse the charge which appeared minutes later in their system. So, I bit the bullet and called EASYJETs revenue generating customer service line (you pay by the minute)representative. When I spoke to the representaive to tell her what had happened, she said that she could not honor the internet fare over the phone, but could only sell me a seat that was nearly twice the cost of what I had found on line. and that if I wanted to cancel the ticket it would cost more than what I had paid for it. She was totally uninterested in the fact that maybe there was an error with the website, and clearly used this situation as an opportunity to increase revenue. On principle, I refused to pay more for the ticket and advised them that I would file a dispute with my credit card. My credit card company was extremely quick to reverse this charge once that I formally requested that they do so. So if anyone is wondering why EasyJet might not want another travel agency to book on its website, I personally have one possible explanation. Maybe EasyJet is afraid that Expedia might uncover what for me was nothing other than a booking SCAM.

For another EasyJet Scam, check this website:

http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/easyjet-c79240.html
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obama, 18 Sep 2008 @ 2:40pm

game runescape
omg please sue a website called www.runescape.com please! it sucks i hate it its annoying and robbed all my money this lieng 100%saftey even when i searched if safe then it said yes they took like 300$ insted of 4$ please sue www.runescape.com thank you verymuch
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obama, 18 Sep 2008 @ 2:43pm

worldscape
and for the people who like games like runescape go to www.allgofree.org/rs/client it rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tell people 14under please first understand runescape to undderstand worldscape thx!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 5:17am

wahhever mann lol doing a review on it easy jet sucks
skn .com
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