
Southwest's Bullshit Lawsuit Over a Site That Made $45 - crobertsbmw
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180119/10244639042/southwests-bullshit-lawsuit-over-site-that-made-45-helping-people-book-cheaper-flights.shtml
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ekanes
I'm torn. If it's a Good Thing that a company offers this to it's users, but
another company causes Southwest to pull the concept because they make it
easier to take advantage of, do we all lose together? So, yes, for a time some
people gain at Southwest's expense, but long-term I'd kind of rather Southwest
kept it. A tech-assisted tragedy of the commons doesn't really help anyone,
long-term.

~~~
rahimnathwani
The policy seems to me a form of price discrimination (i.e. separating a
single market into two or more separate markets, based on the price elasticity
of demand of the customers).

People for whom $10 or $20 isn't a big deal, will not bother to check if their
flight has gone down in price, so South West gets to charge them the higher
price. Others who bother to check a few times get to pay a lower price.

It seems similar to coupons/offers in the Safeway app. If you can be bothered
to look and add the coupon to your account, you get a discount, but if you're
rich you don't bother, and pay the higher price.

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Osiris
It really baffles me how in the U.S. the prosecution of criminal cases puts
the burden of proof on the prosecution while in _civil_ cases, the burden is
on the defendant to disprove the allegations.

That seems so backwards to me.

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perl4ever
Why do you say "the burden is on the defendant"?

The usual description is that "the plaintiff has the burden of proving their
case by a preponderance of the evidence".

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tuna-piano
True from a law perspective, but think about this case.

The site had made $45. Just the threat of a lawsuit (that Southwest might not
have won) was enough to shut them down. If you fight a big company like
Southwest, even if you win, you probably lose (legal fees, concentration,
etc).

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tehlike
Relevant EFF articles:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/eff-court-accessing-
pu...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/12/eff-court-accessing-publicly-
available-information-internet-not-crime)

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-
doubles-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/ninth-circuit-doubles-down-
violating-websites-terms-service-not-crime)

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freedom7775
Seems like bait to me. Why would you launch a website like that when you know
it is going to be attacked? If they actually wanted to provide this service
they would have launched the website offshore and ignored south west.

~~~
crobertsbmw
I launched the site. When I was building it, I never expected it to be
attacked.

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erric
This is one of the reasons I won’t fly swa

