Some screen scraping sites 'unreliable on their own'

2009-07-09

Screen scraping websites used by people to compare insurance prices are not always reliable as they rely on commercial relationships, it has been suggested.

With these screen scraping sites, not all insurance providers are always listed on every one because of these commercial obligations, according to GMTV's money saving expert Martin Lewis, writing on the company's website.

He said that those looking to get the best comparison will have to combine the right sites in the correct order to get the most coverage in the shortest amount of time.

Mr Lewis explained that such websites scrape data off of screens to report back the cheapest quote to the consumer.

According to experts at Sentor, those firms that have large public databases on their websites, which may include comparison site companies, should take the issues of scraping seriously.

They say that online directories are prime targets for scraping, as are airlines and business-to-business portals.