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Is Data Mining for Product Pricing, Illegal?

Posted by Cliff on from the courts-and-ethics dept.

wessman asks: "I started to read Orin S. Kerr's 80-page paper looking for how his proposal would pertain to: ripping music/movies, P2P, corporate espionage, and lastly, the use of web scraper robots. Little did I know just how relevant his paper would be in regards to that last item! Kerr makes note of EF Cultural Travel v. Explorica in which Explorica is caught hiring a consultant to program a scraping robot to gather pricing information from a competitor, EF Cultural Travel. Well, I do consulting on the side from home and am currently working a project whereby I gather pricing information from all the major travel conglomerates (Orbitz, Expedia, Lodging.com, WorldRes, Sabre, etc.) so that the travel booking business that hired me can meet or beat all their prices. Granted, the circumstances of the Explorica case are different and the case was an example of an extreme ruling, but my questions to the Slashdot community are: Do I notify the company that hired me of the Explorica case? Why is using a scraper robot so different from, say, walking into Best Buy with a handheld and recording product pricing manually? Should I continue with this project and the similar projects I do in this area of programming?" Now, add in the text in the "deliverables" section of this press release and it seems we may have some contradictory information. Who is right, and under what circumstances is price harvesting off of the internet not allowed?

3 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. Re:let me ask you this. by slamb · · Score: 5, Funny
    An Anonymous Coward asked: Is the comma near the end of this question, necessary?

    Of course it is. Let's dissect this sentence:

    Is Data Mining for Product Pricing, Illegal?
    • Subject: Data (from Star Trek, I suppose)
    • Verb: Mining
    • Object: Product pricing
    • Listener: Illegal

    Not having the comma would completely distort the meaning of the sentence.

  2. Ummm.. by deadgoon42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    My grandmother calls this "shopping around." The only difference is that someone else is doing all the work.

    --

    Smeghead every day of the week.
  3. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who is this "Illegal" person and why are we asking him questions about Star Trek characters?

    I'm not "Illegal," but I'll answer. Seeing as how he was killed off in the last movie, I think it's safe to say that no, Data is not mining for product pricing.

    (In other words, you illiterate clods need to be more careful with your commas.)