Ryanair Wins Court Order Agai

RNS Number : 8278Y

Ryanair Holdings PLC

10 July 2008

 



RYANAIR WINS COURT ORDER AGAINST GERMAN SCREEN SCRAPING WEBSITE

Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline today (Thursday, 10th July 2008) confirmed that it had secured an injunction in the Hamburg Regional Court against one of Germany's largest screenscraping companies Vtours GmBH. This order effectively prevents Vtours GmBH from unlawfully accessing Ryanair's website, and presenting Ryanair's flights and timetables for sale to Vtours GmBH customers.

Ryanair, which is the only European airline to guarantee the lowest fares (and no surcharges) on every route it flies, has a policy of banning these unlawful screenscrapers wherever third party companies attempt to misuse and/or mis-sell details of Ryanair's flights and pricing. Ryanair explained that their objections to these third party screen scrapers are based on the following:

• These screenscrapers are in breach of Ryanair.com's copyright and terms of use.

• Many of these screenscrapers charge consumers a handling fee for their non existent service of showing them Ryanair's lowest prices.

• Many of the screenscrapers fail to provide passengers with Ryanair's terms and conditions of travel.

• Many of these screenscrapers do not pass on Ryanair e-mail messages about flight changes, delays or policy changes.

• Many of these screenscrapers are unlawfully using Ryanair's lowest fares to mis-sell higher cost accommodation, car hire and travel insurance to intending Ryanair passengers, compared to what are available to those passengers at lower cost on Ryanair.com's website.

Since www.ryanair.com  is the only travel website with the lowest air fares in Europe, these screenscrapers are breaking both Ryanair's copyright and terms of use. They are similar to video or software pirates, in that they are pretending to present Ryanair flights as their own service and are engaged in blatant mis-selling and/or overcharging passengers for their non existent services. Ryanair welcomes the decision by the Hamburg Regional Court in Germany and welcomes the fact that Vtours GmBH from today is legally prohibited from engaging in this unlawful screenscraping practice.

Ryanair's Michael Cawley said today:

'We welcome this decision by the Hamburg Regional Court in Germany. Screenscraping is an unlawful activity which is a breach of Ryanair's copyright and the terms of use of www.ryanair.com. It is simply unacceptable that consumers are being misled by these screenscrapers into paying 'handling charges' for Ryanair's flights which they can purchase the same flights with no handling charge on www.ryanair.com.  We remain deeply concerned at the failure of many of these screenscrapers to properly communicate Ryanair's terms and conditions, our policies or up to date flight changes and flight information, to customers who mistakenly believe that they have made bookings directly with Ryanair.

'Ryanair believes these screenscrapers are nothing more than video or software pirates and we will continue to campaign across Europe for legislation to prohibit this unlawful screenscraping and this breach of copyright laws, which will prevent these profiteering middlemen from engaging in the mis-selling of Ryanair's flights and information.

'Ryanair believes that this groundbreaking Court ruling in Germany will be the first of a series of such pro-consumer decisions across Europe'.

Ends.                    Thursday, 10th July 2008

For further information

please contact:              Stephen McNamara          Pauline McAlester

                                       Ryanair Ltd                       Murray Consultants

                                       Tel: [phone]         Tel. [phone]

 

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