A Sad Day - A Legal Decision Puts BroadFirst Out Of Business
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Sheri Archidiacono in Sedo’s Newsletter (they don’t have it available online) sais this about “Website Terms and Conditions are Considered a Contract”:
“In the case of Southwest Airlines Co. v. BoardFirst, LLC, a Texas court held that a user of a website was bound by the terms and conditions of that website where the user has actual knowledge of such terms and conditions.
The Plaintiffs, Southwest airlines maintained a first come, first served, open seating policy, where passengers are arranged in groups. The Defendant, Boardfirst.com was an internet company that provided a service to Southwest customers whereby for a fee, a passenger could check in early and BoardFirst would attempt to get the passenger into the first boarding group.
Southwest filed suit against Boardfirst alleging that BoardFirsts service was a violation of the Southwest Web site′s terms of service because the terms of service stated that the user agreed that he/she shall not use the Southwest site for any purpose other than personal, non-commercial reasons.
This case turned on two major points.
First, the court examined whether the terms of service were a valid contract. The court held that so long as the user has “actual or constructive knowledge” of the terms and conditions of the user agreement. The court held that BoardFirst had actual knowledge of the terms and conditions because they were clearly displayed via a link on the Southwest homepage, hence creating a binding contract between Southwest and BoardFirst.
Secondly, the court determined that BoardFirst had violated the terms and conditions by using the site for commercial purposes even though they were acting as agents for Southwest’s customers.
Therefore, the court ordered a permanent injunction which would stop BoardFirst from ever using Southwest’s website. The court further stated that although it knew that the court’s order would cause the dissolution of BoardFirst as a company, it was the only way to ensure that BoardFirst would stop its unauthorized use of Southwest’s website.”
I for one am very disappointed in the ruling. I think that most of the legal world is clueless to the value and offerings of the internet, and rulings like these will restrict the growth of the internet!
If Southwest is allowing customers to login to their website, there is no reason that the customers can’t have someone else login for them… the concept is ludicrous.
You can’t restrict something that is supposed to be publicly available.
If this ruling doesn’t get knocked down, I think I will be looking at the years before 2007 as “the happy years of the wild west internet”… and the restricted days afterwards.
It is so sad that while companies likeFacebook and Myspace are so desperately busy opening up their platforms for outside developers, a savvy company (not so savvy anymore) like Southwest is busy suing the heck out of a company that offers a useful service.
Heck, they’ve had sniping services on ebay for years, and it bugged no-one.
If Southwest thinks that they can do a better job at it than boardfirst, let them try… This is plain stupid.
This is a tirade I know, but I think that this portends really badly for the online marketing field.
Gosh, Youtube and their Ilk have arguably spawned the growth of online video at a huge clip. Just imagine if the big studios had put their money behind online video monetization instead of hiring lawyers to figth Youtube?
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