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Home | News & events | Legal updates | How to stop your website being ‘screen scraped’
How to stop your website being ‘screen scraped’
22 September 2008
When Ryanair hit the news recently by cancelling flight bookings made by passengers through third party websites, the phrase ‘screen scraping’ was heard by many people for the first time.
Ryanair’s bold move was part of a wider dispute between the airline and travel websites that have used screen scraping technology to gather flight details and price information from Ryanair’s own site. Here, solicitor and IP/IT specialist Joe Stephenson explains screen scraping, and what can be done to stop it.
What is screen scraping?
Screen scraping describes the use of a computer program – known as a screen scraper – to extract data from a third party’s website. It is popular among price comparison and other intermediary websites, which find it a quick and cost-effective method of collecting large amounts of data that are subject to constant – often daily – change.
In many industries screen scraping is tolerated, largely because price comparison websites can often be an important source of business for the targeted website. It can also be argued that consumers profit from such activity, as increased transparency puts pressure on competing companies to keep their prices down.
Nevertheless, some businesses – particularly airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet – object to screen scraping, claiming that companies using it put themselves between them and their customers and inflate their flight prices by charging the customer an additional service fee which the airlines say is unjustified.
They also claim that websites using screen scrapers fail to pass on important flight information, such as cancellations and delays, to customers after the booking has been made and slow down the airline’s own transactional website. This has led to a spate of disputes between the airlines and websites using screen scraping.
Ryanair v Bravofly
One of the most publicised disputes is between Ryanair and Bravofly.
Swiss-owned Bravofly runs a number of travel websites across Europe, and utilises screen scraping software to extract flight information and prices from airline websites such as Ryanair.
Ryanair commenced proceedings in Ireland against Bravofly, claiming Bravofly’s screen scraping breached its website terms of use, which expressly prohibit commercial use of website information, as well as amounting to trade mark and copyright infringement, and an actionable passing-off.
To add spice to the dispute, neither Ryanair nor Bravofly have shied away from making their feelings for one another publicly known.
In a series of press releases, Bravofly has accused Ryanair of adopting ‘an insidious policy of unjust taxes on the base prices of airline tickets’. In response, Ryanair has said that ‘…screen scrapers are nothing more than video or software pirates’, and that they will campaign to ‘...prevent these profiteering middlemen from engaging in the mis-selling of Ryanair’s flights and information’.
It remains to be seen in whose favour the Irish courts will decide, but other EU decisions paint a far from clear picture. For instance, in November 2007 the Tribunal of Commerce, in Paris, declared that similar demands made by Ryanair against other operators were unfounded.
In contrast, in July this year Ryanair claimed victory in the German courts when it was awarded an injunction against Vtours GmbH, another travel website using screen scrapers. It is claimed by Ryanair that the terms of the injunction prevent Vtours from unlawfully accessing their website and presenting their flights and timetables for sale to Vtours’ customers. However, in a more recent decision in Germany, Cheaptickets BV, a Dutch website trading in Germany, obtained an order from the German court compelling Ryanair to accept tickets purchased through their website, which Ryanair had previously sought to block.
Stopping screen scraping
The practice of screen scraping is not specifically dealt with under any UK or European legislation, nor has there been a definitive judgement on its legalities emanating from either the UK or European Courts.
For the time being, people looking to prevent third party websites from extracting data from their own websites will need to rely on a mixture of robust website terms of use, intellectual property rights and technical measures:
- website terms of use – website owners’ terms of use should expressly prohibit screen scraping and other unlicensed activities. Whether an alleged infringer is bound by those terms of use in the absence of some express acceptance remains a tricky issue, and one that hopefully the Irish courts will get an opportunity to shed more light on in Ryanair v Bravofly.
- database rights – one of the stronger legal arguments that Ryanair and companies in a similar position may be able to raise is that screen scraping infringes their database rights.
Database rights were introduced to give database owners an action against people who extract information from their database without permission.
The argument will hinge on whether the data extracted by the alleged infringer forms part of a ‘database’. In Ryanair’s case, it is certainly arguable that the pricing and flight information contained on Ryanair’s website constitutes a database within the meaning of the legislation. If it can then be shown that the amount of data extracted by Bravofly constituted a substantial part of that database, Ryanair will have all the ingredients for an infringement action. - copyright infringement – an intermediary website may make use of images lifted directly from the target website, particularly in identifying its services. Such use without permission may constitute copyright infringement.
- trade mark infringement – it is possible that unfair use of the targeted website’s trade marks on an intermediary website may amount to trade mark infringement, although it is likely that some usage will be permitted. Proceed with caution.
- technical measures – there are technical solutions, such as blocking the IP address of the intermediary website or using CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to limit access to the website by automated screen scrapers. Specialist technical advice is recommended; Ryanair is using Microsoft and Navitare to help it block screen scrapers.
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Joseph Stephenson
Solicitor
T: 08700 86 8876
I: +44 (0)118 965 8876
E: joe.stephenson@shoosmiths.co.uk