Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Texas Court Blocks Screen-Scraper

Posted by timothy on from the bits-is-bits dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Texas court has granted American Airlines an injunction against Farechaser to stop them from using a screen-scraper to copy airfare information from their website in violation of the terms and conditions. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, Farechase.com's own terms and conditions prohibit users from doing to them exactly what they are doing to AA.com. The EFF is involved, but it's unclear whether they're supporting the enforceability of a website's terms and conditions or Farechase's right to violate them."

1 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Screenscrapers and the Law by aridhol · · Score: 5, Interesting
    OK, Was going to Ask Slashdot this, but since it's already sorta on topic...

    My employer has "requested" that I write a screen scraper to grab information from a competitor's site. The data will then be put into our databases, and sold as our own. This is in violation of the competitor's terms of agreement, and I have thus far not done this.

    I am unable to find anything on Google relating to the legality of this, but I believe that it is probably not legal. However, I was told to "do it and let the lawyers deal with it".

    Whether it is legal or not, I do not feel that it is ethical, and may leave the company if I am pushed to do this.

    Does anybody know where I can read any case law on screen scraping? Aside from the current article, that is.

    --
    I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.