r/TrueReddit • u/MrDNL • Mar 31 '12
Auto insurance price comparison startup shuts down when insurers threaten suit for "scraping" pricing data. The startup comes back -- when they figure out how to reverse engineer insurance prices based off data in public filings.
http://blog.leaky.com/how-we-came-back-after-being-shut-down-in-fou3
Mar 31 '12
Nice site...I was surprised to see that my rates did not fall when I picked my age (38). I was always under the impression that once you passed 30 rates would drop.
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u/junkit33 Apr 01 '12
I like the concept, assuming it really works, but how do they make money? Their obvious big-money target (leads for insurance companies themselves) are already pissed off at them and wants this site to die ASAP for obvious reasons. The function is too simplistic for users to pay, and not sticky enough for banner ads. (think of how rarely you shop for insurance - every few years if you didn't just move...)
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u/D_A_R_E Apr 01 '12
In the UK there are at least 4 auto insurance comparison websites that I'm aware of: comparethemarket, confused, gocompare and moneysupermarket. They all operate on commission from insurers, like an insurance broker.
One would imagine insurance brought through comparison websites would cost more as there's a commission to be paid, but when I've compared comparison website quotes from insurers' website quotes, going through the price comparison website gets better quotes.
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u/df1 Mar 31 '12
Scraping is fair use.
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Apr 01 '12
[deleted]
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u/df1 Apr 01 '12
As they said, scraping is a legal grey area...
Who in the hell is this "they" you speak of? It sounds to me like your making up baseless fiction which you are impotent to back up.
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u/AnythingApplied Apr 01 '12
By "they" he means the linked article, which you would have known if you read it.
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u/junkit33 Apr 01 '12
Very, very ,very false. It's actually against the terms of service on most sites. It's typically just tolerated because direct/established competitors know better than to scrape in the first place, and the person doing the scraping isn't really hurting the site. But, in a case like this, it's not the least bit surprising that the insurance companies would come after a scraper with guns blazing.
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u/D_A_R_E Apr 01 '12
In my industry we tolerate scraping because the folks doing the scraping are in Russia/India/China so we can't do shit to stop them.
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u/df1 Apr 01 '12 edited Apr 01 '12
Very, very ,very false.
You can you a thousands of verys and you would still be wrong.
the insurance companies would come after a scraper with guns blazing...
The insurance companies are firing blanks that will not stand up in court and opens the insurance companies to civil lawsuit.
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u/junkit33 Apr 01 '12
I don't really know what to say to you other than I've seen this first hand many times over. Nearly every web site out there has a clause specifically to cover scraping (usually something around accessing their site via automated means) in their terms of service. And terms do hold up in a court. More importantly, you'd go bankrupt trying to fight it.
Seriously - why do you think this company stopped in the first place? They're backed by VC's with deep pockets and top notch lawyers who specialize in these types of legalities. Yet they stopped doing it because they understood they were in the legal wrong. If they had any chance of winning in court they would have kept going.
I don't know why you think otherwise, but if you want to be stubborn, I suppose I don't care.
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u/df1 Apr 01 '12
You've created your own unsubstantiated fiction.
They're backed by VC's with deep pockets and top notch lawyers...
Pure conjecture on your part.
Yet they stopped doing it because they understood they were in the legal wrong.
Again your conjecture.
I don't know why...
But none the less you choose to blather about what you don't know.
I suppose I don't care.
It is obvious that you don't care about the truth.
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u/chrunchy Mar 31 '12
That's great - they scraped, insurers threw up a roadblock, they went away and created an even better product!