Pizzaman

No, PIM is still alive, but I launched a second podcast recently for my day job. That would have been fine but Omicron is also crushing the restaurants I run, so there just aren't a lot of hours in the day. I still love writing and hope to be back to a regular cadence soon. You're not rid of me yet, Oliver.

GUWonder

As usual, I'm against AA's customer-unfriendly nonsense. I hope TPG wins on this front against AA.

Maybe TPG will eventually disappear its opposition to AA's position in exchange for some kind of deal with AA. That would be unfortunate but not all that surprising.

kokonutz

I can see both sides.

Some FFers feel they need an app that can track their miles and points, and if they want to give away their # and password to a third party to do so (and accept the consequent risk) then that's their business (personally, I'd NEVER trust RV with my credentials).

But AA doesn't want bots having access to their system. And what happens if RV's dbase gets compromised and all the AA credentials are accessed and abused? Just so RV can make money. That's a lot of risk for AA to consider absent any compensation for that risk.

So the simple solution is for RV to pay AA for access at a rate that allows AA to manage risk. But that might make the app prohibitively expensive.

The fact that they went to lawsuits shows that whatever negotiation there was broke down pretty severely. Because negotiation by lawsuit is very expensive.

Pizzaman

I believe AA will make these assertions in their lawsuit and court, if it ends up there. However, I don't think that's the issue.

I had both Brian and Gary on my podcast this week (separately) to discuss the issue. I agree with the points Gary made, that this is a battle of eyeballs. Both RV and AA want to monetize these customers in every which way, and that's easier to do on their own website/app. I'd love to see it get decided by a judge, but I doubt the battle gets that far.

Adam1222

Notably, neither Brian nor Gary are lawyers. Brian is being used as a PR tool. Gary has is own agenda.

It would be great to see the communications between AA and Red Ventures that preceded litigation. But the fact that said emails would be public is a reason for them to settle early. I would be shocked if Brian was involved in any of those communications, of course, because RV has previously stated he does not have a day to day role at the company, and defenders of the site pointed to that as absolution when he was credibly accused of bullying and sexual harassment in the workplace. Seems Brian continues to speak for the company when it's convenient, but doesnt when its not.

rhysflies

I'm no lawyer, but what claim does RV actually have over AA's data? None, I assume? I would hazard that it's perfectly within AA's rights to restrict how and when data on its systems is accessed.

RV isn't stupid, so if that's the case then this 'lawsuit' is actually more of a PR stunt. RV can position themselves as being in favour of consumers and make it seem like they are fighting for frequent flyers. Still, seems like an aggressive way to deal with a (former) partner.

Of course, what both AA and RV won't say is that they both want to monetise this audience. That's the real fallout from this: who will get to sell credit cards with $500 kick backs to AA's frequent flyers.

oliver2002

Conversely, who gets to compensate the customer when his/her points are stolen after a data breach I still haven't found out how Awardwallet and AA solved that.

dingo

So rv wants to use the IT infrastructure of aa to do business. Why exactly is aa IT community property? As a consumer some of the at data is mine. But if I want to give it to rv that doesn’t mean aa has to provide the tech for that. I can punch that data in manually and it’s still mine. Rv needs to lose this decisively.

ctownflyer

i doubt the communication is too interesting. AA sends RV/TPG a cease and desist, RV/TPG says no and preemptively sues AA, which results in the countersuit.

I'm just curious why RV isn't nervous about AA telling Citi to cut off affiliate links for Citi AA cards on TPG and creditcards.com?

oliver2002

Probably AA doesn't have the power/authority to tell Citi which channel to use or not use?

kokonutz

That's my take as well. My website, my rules. EOS.

Don't like it? Pound sand.

BTW, I don't think anything on the AA website (points, status, anything) belongs to the AA customer. It all belongs to AA. All of it. They just let us use it.

Adam1222

Much less is AA intellectual property, which RV is using to sell it's product, some sort of consumer-owned good. Notably, that is one of the legal claims that is not getting addressed in much of the faux outrage from those who have gotten rich off of misleading the customers they now claim to be fighting for.

ctownflyer

They certainly do, whether it makes business sense to do so is another story.

GUWonder

AA has the power/authority to say what they want, but that doesn’t mean it’s sensible to say — let alone push for — whatever they may want to see end up happening.

Perhaps AA lawyers — whether in-house or retained external counsel — and/or involved AA execs are not so eager to set themselves up for (losing) a claim of tortious interference with a contract that Citi has with RV/TPG.

Adam1222

Without seeing the contracts between Citi and AA, this is all speculation. But if AA were enforcing a clause of its own contract with Citi, i am not so confident it would be subject to such a claim.