“A jury in the District Court of Delaware unanimously found that Booking.com violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse act and that it had induced a third party to access parts of Ryanair’s website without authorisation “with an intent to defraud,” the verdict said.”
Ryanair turned the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act into a weapon against screen scraping, and a Delaware jury bought it. Michael O’Leary calls resellers “OTA Pirates” who overcharge consumers. Ryanair has meanwhile signed its own deals with online travel agents for authorised resale. The fight was never about piracy. It was about who gets to collect the add-on fees.