Ryanair wins screen-scraping court ruling

Ryanair has claimed a legal victory in its long-running battle with screenscrapers after eDreams was banned from using the domain Ryanair.eDreams.de.

Ryanair has claimed a legal victory in its long-running battle with screen-scrapers after eDreams was banned from using the domain Ryanair.eDreams.de.

The online retailer was also banned from using the subdomain in Google ads as part of the judgement in the Regional Court of Hamburg’s (Landgericht Hamburg).

The Court also ordered eDreams to pay compensation for trademark infringement.

According to Ryanair the court ruled that eDreams use of the subdomain wrongfully suggested to customers that eDreams itself is Ryanair, when there is no commercial relationship between the website and budget airline.

Ryanair head of communications Robin Kiely said: “Ryanair welcomes the judgment of the Regional Court of Hamburg which found that eDreams has been using an unlawful subdomain and was misleading customers into thinking that it had an official partnership with Ryanair.

“Ryanair will continue to pursue screenscraper websites such as eDreams to prevent Europe’s consumers from being misled over price and booking conditions. We would again urge customers to book directly on the Ryanair.com website to guarantee the lowest fares and best customer service.”