Ryanair triumphs again in screen-scraping case

2010-03-05

Ryanair now has the right to sue screen-scraping companies after winning another court case in Germany, it emerged this week.

The budget airline had already triumphed in a January lawsuit against Vtours, a German website which used screen-scraping techniques to resell some of its tickets.

However, the carrier has now scored a second success - this time involving a site known as Cheaptickets - at the Regional Court of Hamburg.

"Ryanair is delighted at [the] victory, which is the fourth time the German courts have outlawed screen scraping," commented spokesman Stephen McNamara.

"[We are] confident that with these strong precedents, all European courts will support Ryanair's fight to protect consumers against overcharging screen-scraping ticket-touts."

Mr McNamara added that Cheaptickets and other genuine price comparison websites can enter into a license agreement with Ryanair if they want to provide an "honest" service to German consumers.

Last month, Mary Landesman, a senior security researcher at ScanSafe, warned webmasters that "cyberwar is already here".