CAPTAIN HOOK
Well-Known Member
Especially those who go to Disney
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Someone is Selling Restaurant Reservations....
- Thread starter PhotoDave219
- Start date
Minnie1986
Well-Known Member
I've used DDB in the past ans would never have gotten the reservations without them. I actually don't see a problem with site like DDB, because they are not making reservation for you, but simply notifying you that one is currently available. Seems like a win win to me.
dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
Except that they have to periodically run your query against the ADR system to see if anything is available. Which means that the ADR servers are constantly having to dedicate resources to running the same query over and over again. Not such a huge deal when you remember to search every 10-20 mins while you are at work, but when a computer back end runs hundreds or thousands of queries every few minutes it's a different scenario.
Coaster Lover
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Not sure if it was Disney cracking down on one of these sites or not, but my Dad had been trying to get reservations for Be Our Guest for months. They are going early December and EVERY dinner reservation the week they were going was booked. He had been checking just about every day with no results, but just yesterday, he checked again and a bunch of reservations had opened up seemingly all at once (including several at prime dinner hours [5 pm - 7 pm] and several on weekend days). Does Disney possibly hold some reservations and purposely release them a couple months out, was this Disney cracking down on a site that had gobbled up a bunch of reservations, or just several random groups all canceling at the same time? Tough to say, but I know my dad was pretty happy to finally secure the reservation...
JourneysEnd
Well-Known Member
Sounds like DiS Dining Agent may have been forced to release their made up ADRs.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
This is paramount plus DDB likely has more powerful computers ect and can get access to the content faster even if there not buying the reservation they are locating it first and than selling that info to a select group anyone not using DDB is at a disadvantage.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
A win for you and DDB a loss for anyone else.
NelsonRD
Well-Known Member
What I would do is quietly add a IP request filter to determine how many requests are made per minute from an IP. If it exceeds a few requests per minute, provide a method to prove you are not a bot. Many websites have this in place to prevent scraping. If I want to sit at my desk and click away, and exceed, I can answer the question, and keep trying, a computer cannot. I would take this less forceful approach, and compete with them at their own game, to quietly make them go away.
alissafalco
Well-Known Member
JourneysEnd
Well-Known Member
Good, now we're all back on equal footing until somebody else finds a way to work the system.
asianway
Well-Known Member
Was the idiot serious when he offered to cut Disney in on his action?
alissafalco
Well-Known Member
Lol I thought the same thing... Like yeah right.
RandomPrincess
Keep Moving Forward
It won't let me see the article
JourneysEnd
Well-Known Member
You have to register before it will let you read, but it doesn't cost anything to register.It won't let me see the article
alissafalco
Well-Known Member
They tried that with me as well, I didn't subscribe...I typed in the title of the article in google and opened it up that way.
Here it is:
an online entrepreneurs legally crawl Walt Disney World's dining-reservations website, then share the information for commercial gain?
Disney says no, and it has been clamping down on sites that alerted customers about available tables at its popular restaurants. One of the last Web pages standing, Disney Dining Scout, plans to fold after receiving a cease-and-desist letter.
"I can't go toe to toe with Disney on this," said Matt Voss, a Texas software developer who originally started Disney Dining Scout as a way for his wife to snag reservations.
QVC, Ticketmaster, Facebook, Craigslist and eBay have all gone to court fighting companies that used computer programs to mine their sites for data — a practice often called "Web scraping." Companies consider the scrapers a nuisance that picks up on proprietary data and can interfere with their online operations.
"I think it is a growing concern for companies," said Chrissie Scelsi, an Orlando attorney whose specialties include intellectual property.
In a letter that Voss shared with the Orlando Sentinel, an attorney for Disney pointed to cases including Facebook's victory in a 2008 lawsuit accusing a company called Power Ventures Inc. of accessing and storing users' log-in data without authorization. Power's now-defunct website allowed users to retrieve Facebook messages.
Disney also mentioned a case in which Craigslist sued a business called 3taps, which made real-estate data from the well-known classifieds website available to other companies. 3taps in June agreed to wind down its business and pay $1 million to Craigslist, which in turn said it would give the money to a nonprofit electronic civil-liberties group.
Other lawsuits:
•QVC last year sued an Internet startup called Resultly that it accused of crashing its system after sending anywhere from 200 to 36,000 search requests a minute. QVC is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
•Ticketmaster in 2013 sued Higs Tickets, alleging Higs of improperly procuring tickets for resale by using bots to comb its site. A settlement was reached, and Higs agreed not to use computer programs to buy Ticketmaster tickets, court records show.
•A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in 2000 stopping Bidder's Edge from using bots to search eBay. The Bidder's Edge site no longer exists.
Lawsuits against the scraping websites have claimed everything from trespass to copyright infringement. In a letter to Voss, Disney attorney Carolyn Luedtke said he violated copyright law, trademark law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Voss' Disney Dining Scout was one of several sites that popped up during the last year or so. They charged customers varying amounts to search for hard-to-book reservations at restaurants such as Be Our Guest. They conducted constant computerized searches of Disney's site to find available tables.
The websites attracted loyal fans and even travel agents. Voss said he had about 6,000 customers and brought in about $13,000 in the six months of his site's operation.
Customers took a dimmer view of another site, however, that actually booked reservations and then sold them. That one, DiSDining Agent, appeared inactive this week.
Disney Dining Buddy and WDWTableFinder both announced last month they would shut down at Disney's request. Another site, WDW Tools, appears to be no longer conducting searches.
When the first sites began ceasing operations, a Disney spokeswoman said last month the company "took action to protect our brand and the high-quality experiences we are committed to providing our guests." Disney declined Friday to comment further.
In her letter, Luedtke told Voss he "made it harder for Disney's guests to secure reservations directly through the Disney Dining site and enjoy their Disney resort vacation without having to pay a scalping fee to you to obtain a dining reservation." She told Voss that because of his actions, people on Disney's dining site sometimes encountered slow searches and even "total system unavailability." Voss said blaming computer problems on him was "ludicrous."
Luedtke also suggested Voss was taking measures to conceal his site's identity when accessing Disney's Web page. Voss denies doing that.
Voss proposed working with Disney through a licensing agreement.
"We weren't looking to harm Disney. We weren't looking to be a competitor to Disney," he said. "I even told them … 'Look, what does it take to come to some kind of business agreement with you? Let's make this all work for everybody. Your customers are out there clamoring for this.'"
Disney told him no thanks.
Disney's website terms of service include a clause saying that users agree not to access the site via computerized robots without permission.
Scelsi said all the legal cases show that website operators should exercise caution when extracting information.
"I wouldn't 100 percent say don't do it, but be smart about it. Be aware of the potential impacts," she said. "If you're getting push-back, you might want to reconsider."
Here it is:
an online entrepreneurs legally crawl Walt Disney World's dining-reservations website, then share the information for commercial gain?
Disney says no, and it has been clamping down on sites that alerted customers about available tables at its popular restaurants. One of the last Web pages standing, Disney Dining Scout, plans to fold after receiving a cease-and-desist letter.
"I can't go toe to toe with Disney on this," said Matt Voss, a Texas software developer who originally started Disney Dining Scout as a way for his wife to snag reservations.
QVC, Ticketmaster, Facebook, Craigslist and eBay have all gone to court fighting companies that used computer programs to mine their sites for data — a practice often called "Web scraping." Companies consider the scrapers a nuisance that picks up on proprietary data and can interfere with their online operations.
"I think it is a growing concern for companies," said Chrissie Scelsi, an Orlando attorney whose specialties include intellectual property.
In a letter that Voss shared with the Orlando Sentinel, an attorney for Disney pointed to cases including Facebook's victory in a 2008 lawsuit accusing a company called Power Ventures Inc. of accessing and storing users' log-in data without authorization. Power's now-defunct website allowed users to retrieve Facebook messages.
Disney also mentioned a case in which Craigslist sued a business called 3taps, which made real-estate data from the well-known classifieds website available to other companies. 3taps in June agreed to wind down its business and pay $1 million to Craigslist, which in turn said it would give the money to a nonprofit electronic civil-liberties group.
Other lawsuits:
•QVC last year sued an Internet startup called Resultly that it accused of crashing its system after sending anywhere from 200 to 36,000 search requests a minute. QVC is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
•Ticketmaster in 2013 sued Higs Tickets, alleging Higs of improperly procuring tickets for resale by using bots to comb its site. A settlement was reached, and Higs agreed not to use computer programs to buy Ticketmaster tickets, court records show.
•A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in 2000 stopping Bidder's Edge from using bots to search eBay. The Bidder's Edge site no longer exists.
Lawsuits against the scraping websites have claimed everything from trespass to copyright infringement. In a letter to Voss, Disney attorney Carolyn Luedtke said he violated copyright law, trademark law and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Voss' Disney Dining Scout was one of several sites that popped up during the last year or so. They charged customers varying amounts to search for hard-to-book reservations at restaurants such as Be Our Guest. They conducted constant computerized searches of Disney's site to find available tables.
The websites attracted loyal fans and even travel agents. Voss said he had about 6,000 customers and brought in about $13,000 in the six months of his site's operation.
Customers took a dimmer view of another site, however, that actually booked reservations and then sold them. That one, DiSDining Agent, appeared inactive this week.
Disney Dining Buddy and WDWTableFinder both announced last month they would shut down at Disney's request. Another site, WDW Tools, appears to be no longer conducting searches.
When the first sites began ceasing operations, a Disney spokeswoman said last month the company "took action to protect our brand and the high-quality experiences we are committed to providing our guests." Disney declined Friday to comment further.
In her letter, Luedtke told Voss he "made it harder for Disney's guests to secure reservations directly through the Disney Dining site and enjoy their Disney resort vacation without having to pay a scalping fee to you to obtain a dining reservation." She told Voss that because of his actions, people on Disney's dining site sometimes encountered slow searches and even "total system unavailability." Voss said blaming computer problems on him was "ludicrous."
Luedtke also suggested Voss was taking measures to conceal his site's identity when accessing Disney's Web page. Voss denies doing that.
Voss proposed working with Disney through a licensing agreement.
"We weren't looking to harm Disney. We weren't looking to be a competitor to Disney," he said. "I even told them … 'Look, what does it take to come to some kind of business agreement with you? Let's make this all work for everybody. Your customers are out there clamoring for this.'"
Disney told him no thanks.
Disney's website terms of service include a clause saying that users agree not to access the site via computerized robots without permission.
Scelsi said all the legal cases show that website operators should exercise caution when extracting information.
"I wouldn't 100 percent say don't do it, but be smart about it. Be aware of the potential impacts," she said. "If you're getting push-back, you might want to reconsider."
I'm declaring victory. Mission Accomplished. Good work, team.
pajammies
Well-Known Member
Question... Did the information from this thread you started get the attention of people from Disney.
I mean, the timing sure seams to say yes, but were they actually unaware of the problem before it was mentioned here? If so, I agree, good work!
I'm not egotistical to think that I'm the one who got their attention. I'm sure others did as well and that makes it a team effort.
Alas the timing is suspect.... Nonetheless, we're all just looking for an equal shot to get our ressies. And that's all I would expect.
HolleBolleGijs
Well-Known Member
It might have something to do with this, but that's not unheard of. It happened to me a few months ago when I was trying to snag BoG.
WDW Tools ADR Sniper is refusing to issue refunds to customers even though the finder is not working anymore. It is my understanding that all these other companies issued refunds. They are stating that
"We are pursuing every avenue we have to restore this functionality. As we have not yet exhausted every plausible avenue, we are not ready to declare these functions totally out of commission, and we are not ready to address the issue of refunds and/or credits. It's important that we retain confidentiality around these prospective avenues, so unfortunately, we can't go into more detail now. We hope to have more detailed information shortly."
"We are pursuing every avenue we have to restore this functionality. As we have not yet exhausted every plausible avenue, we are not ready to declare these functions totally out of commission, and we are not ready to address the issue of refunds and/or credits. It's important that we retain confidentiality around these prospective avenues, so unfortunately, we can't go into more detail now. We hope to have more detailed information shortly."