Two recent web scraping disputes highlight some important issues regarding whether a website owner may successfully allege a breach of contract action against a commercial party that has scraped website content contrary to “clickwrap” and “browsewrap” website terms of use.

In Southwest Airlines Co. v. Roundpipe, LLC, No. 18-0033 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 22, 2019), a Texas district court declined to dismiss Southwest Airlines Co.’s (“Southwest”) breach of contract claim against an entity that scraped airfare data from Southwest’s site in violation of the website terms of use. Southwest brought multiple claims against Roundpipe, LLC (“Roundpipe”) after it discovered that Roundpipe had created a website, SWMonkey.com, that, using scraping, sent consumers notifications if their Southwest ticket prices decreased after purchase (which would presumably allow them to exchange the original ticket for a lower-priced ticket).

Southwest’s website terms prohibited scraping or the use of any automated tools to access its fares or other content. Soon after the launch of SWMonkey, Southwest sent a cease and desist letter stating that Roundpipe was obtaining Southwest’s data in violation of the website terms, among other reasons, and demanded that the site be taken down.  After negotiations and additional correspondence from Southwest, Roundpipe shut down the website and disabled its scraping and fare tracking functionality.