Voyij.com, a new metasearch engine for travel deals and specials, is engaged in screen-scraping, or aggregating data from other websites.
But Voyij President Brent Stewart said the company scrapes data from the websites of online travel agencies, airlines and vacation wholesalers "two to three times per day," which is not overly burdensome.
"We agree screen-scraping can be evil," Stewart said, pointing to differences between Voyij’s practices and traditional screen-scraping.
Stewart noted that when metasearch sites first came on the scene, they often scraped supplier websites each time a user conducted a search because the metasearch engines were conducting real-time searches.
However, Stewart explained that when consumers search for deals on Voyij, they query Voyij’s database of deals, not the sites of suppliers and online agencies.
Instead of scraping supplier sites each time a user searches, Voyij scrapes these sites a few times daily because deals inventory isn’t updated as often as broader airline and hotel inventory, he said.
American Airlines, which has sued metasearch engines in the past for unauthorized use of the airline’s inventory, wasn’t buying Voyij’s explanations.
"There is no difference between one screen scrape or 1,000 screen scrapes a day. It is still unauthorized use of our content," said American spokesman Billy Sanez.
Sanez said American has no business relationship with Voyij. Asked what action the airline might take, Sanez said: "We always communicate with people who are using our content illegally."
Voyij has a content partnership with World Choice Travel, which is part of the Travelocity Partner Network, and is syndicating its content to Ingboo.com, Stewart said.
Stewart said Voyij had to launch to build up traffic so it could gain credibility with travel suppliers, and only now is beginning to reach out to them to discuss partnerships.
One competitor noted that the practice of light scraping might be OK for supplier sites, but that consumers won't be happy if Voyij's listed deals aren't actually available for booking on partner sites.
