The pair have mutually agreed to end the proceedings, with the decision coming after three US lobby groups lent their support to Booking.com.
Those groups, representing professionals including journalists and travel technology providers, had argued that a ruling by a Delaware court last year in the case between the companies could inhibit their work and pose significant challenges to them.
Ryanair, whose group CEO is Michael O’Leary, sued Booking.com in 2020 in Delaware, alleging that the website was screen-scraping the airline’s fares without permission.
Screen-scraping involves accessing an airline’s ticket prices and flight data, and then selling tickets for those flights through a third-party website.
Ryanair had already issued cease-and-desist letters to Booking.com before taking the legal action.
After a four-day trial in July last year, a jury in Delaware convicted Booking.com of having caused economic harm to Ryanair. The jury awarded the Irish airline just $5,000 (€4,274) – the minimum threshold required to state a claim under the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
However, the district court judge who heard the case then agreed with Booking.com that Ryanair had not met the requirement of proving that at least $5,000 of loss was attributable to the website, which is a prerequisite to any finding of civil liability under the CFAA.
Accordingly, the judge overturned the ruling.
Importantly, the Delaware court also interpreted the law as meaning that if a site-scraper is told that the same information is available as a registered user, and is issued a cease-and-desist letter, it must stop its activities.
That prompted three lobby groups to weigh in behind Booking.com in Ryanair’s appeal against last year’s ruling.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that defends “digital privacy, free speech and innovation” argued that Ryanair is attempting to stymie competition.
“If unauthorised access can be predicated on a violation of a website owner’s stated preferences, rather than hacking technological barriers, then companies will continue to use the CFAA to fend off competition,” the lobby group told the US Court of Appeals.
It added: “If the use of valid credentials in a way that has been disallowed as a matter of stated – or even unstated – policy were a CFAA violation, a company could create a password-protected ‘gate’, make the key freely available to all, and then send cease-and-desist letters to anyone they don’t like.”
Ryanair had asked the Court of Appeals to prevent the three lobby groups from being permitted to submit briefs in support of Booking.com
“Their briefs should not be allowed or considered by the court because not one squarely addresses the issue in this case – whether Ryanair presented sufficient evidence of $5,000 in loss to maintain a civil action under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” its lawyers told the Court of Appeals.
With the appeal now voluntarily dropped by Ryanair and Booking.com, the original ruling will stand, including the judge’s decision regarding the consequences and strength of cease-and-desist notices.
source