It is something that is being considered.

We have made no upward adjustments when numerous new features/Methods have been added to the KVS Tool over the past 6+ years. Likewise, no downward adjustments are, generally, done when a particular feature/Method can no longer be supported for reasons that are beyond our control.

As another Member had previously noted:

Presumably some people must have asked for the equivalent of a VAT number for wherever KVS pays tax on the licence fees?

To be fair, I don't see any user agreement on GTC (my corporate agency is GTC-powered) that prevents whatever it is KVS is doing.

Furthermore, the whole web/screen scraping argument....I don't think there is a legal definition of it if the best definition is from Wikipedia.

To KVS' point, it is a tool. The donor is the one using it. The donor is the one that has to register for a GTC account with/without permission from the host GTC agency.

However, KVS's argument that it is a "specialized" web browser is also flawed in that it obscure parts of the website and by using it, already puts the donor in violation of the site agreement.

For example, the timetable data is based of amadeus.net. 8.2 in the the Terms of Use states "You agree that you will not remove, obscure, make illegible or alter any notices or indications of the intellectual property rights and/or of Amadeus’ rights and ownership thereof."

A regular web browser will not remove the links to the Terms of Use. KVS Availability Tool does. And I don't think KVS can hide behind the "it's a tool argument" as this tool obscure the link to the Terms of Use to begin with limiting the donor's ability to make an informed decision on whether the underlying terms of use are being violated.

In my opinion, what is the most clear cut that KVS' action is criminal is that the person/company behind KVS implicitly encouraged donors to sign up for unauthorized GTC accounts by sending out the "how to obtain GTC account" email as "unauthorized access" is much more easily defined legally than web/screen scraping.

Yes, very clear:
"We just released some enhancements to FlightStats.com including user interface improvements to the mobile site. We also removed Flight Availability. We fund the free tools on the site with advertisements and occasionally add/remove features based on customer demand."

When the "KVS Tool" "Browsed" the Flightstats site, no advertisements were opened. They funded the free tools with advertisement revenue (see above). The "KVS Tool" prevented any of this revenue from being generated while retrieving data as none of the advertisements loaded.

Try denying that. It is very clear what has happened.

The actual reason states that they

We see no need to add speculative suggestions to the actual reason that has been articulated by their official representative.

Most KVS Tool Users also have ....... (or similar extension) installed in their regular web browsers, so they would not see advertisements regardless of which browser they are using.

Indeed.

I feel dirty even using this as a reference (http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....n-use-instead/) but a third party "well established blogger" says otherwise:

"So they decided it was too costly for them to support given its use, at least that’s their explanation."

Interesting blog post - I had missed that - thanks for posting!

Some interesting quotes from the blogger and the comments in the blog

and

Yes, but let's ignore all of that noise and just focus on :
"occasionally add/remove features based on customer demand."

:)

Sometimes I think this guy would be better off writing political commercials than programming.

Gary is, in fact, a well-established blogger and we find your characterization to be inappropriate.

His explanation is, actually, consistent with the explanation, provided by the representative in that the decision was driven by [insufficient] "customer demand"/"use" of the non-core feature in question.

In contrast, a comment by an anonymous poster "Steve" is speculative and baseless.

That user has 1 and only 1 post. Let's say for the moment Eric is who he claims he is. That doesn't change what I'm seeing on the agency booking login or main page after login. There is no terms of use/user agreement etc.

Hard for me to accept an unpublished user agreement. Eric's comment also illustrates that KVS "passed" on the "user agreement violation" to the donor as KVS didn't create any GTC accounts. He merely provided instructions to the donors.

KVS should stop hiding behind his "specialized" web browser defense as we all know it if not. Instead he should just call it what it is. A travel tool that presents data from 3rd party sites in a layout/format inconsistent with the 3rd party sites' intent and put a clear warning that by using this tool, the donor is possibly violating the terms of use on some of those sites.

Yep. All I want is transparency and functionality. Today we have neither.

Anyone can currently find their own award availability using the well publicized friendly alliance partners (BA, QF, ANA, etc).

I really found the fares and availability useful and efficient, this is why I paid for the tool. Now neither of those are working adequately in my perspective. Nor is there any communication regarding these issues being resolved. Instead we have smoke and mirrors trying to salvage the integrity of the tool.

Why doesn't KVS just pay for access to the GDS like legitimate data tools, and deliver the core part of KVS Availability Tool to it's customers?

Exactly, I think everyone would be very happy with this solution (assuming it isn't velocity limited), even if they had to pay more. Or maybe make a second version so those that like what they have (and the inherent risk and price point) can stick with that.

I'll speculate that it has to do with $. Consider you have a GUI developed for 10+ years with minimal maintenance and no overhead requirement (server hardware and bandwidth) since the searches go user->www. Now if he provides GDS service, that will require not only paying for GDS but also paying to accommodate the searches all route to him (server hardware + bandwidth). The current 60 second blackout between routing rules searches that route to KVS server is not acceptable in my opinion. Having that carry over to Fare/Availability would be even worse. The key value of KVS is consolidated searches (efficient). Having to wait 60 seconds you might as well pay for EF because it is faster and reliable.

But again, instead of fixing the issues or making new solutions, all we get is PR coverup and misdirection here.

It is something that is being considered, but not something that is immediately feasible to implement.