online policy primer
Post on 13-May-2015
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Online Policy Primer
Meng Yuan(Rhoda) Lu14046959NET503 Assignment
2
“Booking.com is the world leader in booking hotel and other accommodations online. It guarantees the best prices for any type of property - from small independents to five-star luxury.”(booking.com,2013)
“Booking.com was recently rated as Australia's biggest and fastest-growing online travel agent by
Hitwise, a digital data specialist that measures website traffic.”(Upe,2013)
Generall
y, We need to tick a box to accept one or more TOS (Terms of Use), EULA (End User License Agreement) or other governing policy if we want to register and use an online service or an online platform .However,
I believe most people(including
me) haven't read these policies
before.
Does it really matter?
Absolutely!
These policies constitute “the rights and responsibilities of customers and suppliers. Ignoring them may increase the likelihood of paying additional fees” (Law&Wong,2010) or other issues ,like privacy and copyright...
Sometimes, it is easy to register
Without real name verifying
Without agreeing to TOS, EULA or other policy.
Like Booking.com
Just type your email address and set a password, then you can have a booking.com account.
Does it mean they don’t have rules? And we
can do whatever we
want….
Of course not….look at the bottom of their
websiteThere are two links which you need pay attention…
Maybe you never see it ….But you should know something about it.
Let’s go…
First of all….First of all….
It means -Once you have accessed this website, no matter read or not, it would be considered that you agreed to all terms and conditions they made.
And….
All the terms and conditions may be
changed anytime without notice…
Age Requirement
“Booking.com are not directed at children under the age of 18. The use of any of our
services is only allowed with the valid consent of a parent or a guardian. When
we receive information from a child under the age of 18, we reserve the right to
delete it.”(booking.com,2013)
That means, you cannot use booking.com to make reservation if you are under 18 years old.
“4.Our service is free of charge. we won't
charge you for our service or add any
additional (reservation) fees to the room rate.
We won't charge your credit card - you'll pay
the accommodation provider directly for your
stay.”(booking.com,2013)
It sounds good! Although
booking.com is playing a role of
agency, it doesn’t charge you any intermediation
fees.
【】
But, it also points out…
1.The information that we disclose is based on the information provided to us by
accommodation providers. we will not verify if, and cannot guarantee that, all
information is accurate, complete or correct, nor can we be held responsible for
any errors (including manifest and typographical errors), any interruptions
(whether due to any (temporary and/or partial) breakdown, repair, upgrade or
maintenance of our website or otherwise), inaccurate, misleading or untrue
information or non-delivery of information. Each accommodation provider
remains responsible at all times for the accuracy, completeness and correctness
of the (descriptive) information (including the rates and availability) displayed on
our website.
”“
(Booking.com,2013)
It means, they cannot verify whether information published in the website is correct or not,
because they are only an agency .All information is
provided by accommodation providers.
If you have any related losses,
they have no responsibility!
That’s great. And what is the Best Price Guarantee?
“2. Prices and Best Price Guarantee: In the event of a crossed-out
rate, we look at the prices currently being charged by the property
in the 30-day window around your proposed check-in date. From
the prices within this window, we display the third-highest price on offer as the crossed-out rate. This means that you get the same room for a lower price compared to other check-in dates at the same time of year.”(Booking.com,2013)
What can you do if other place has a better deal after your reservation with booking.com?
That means, you can get a better rate if you find a lower rate even you have made a reservation with booking.com. But you must contact them
immediately and all the booking conditions in the new place must be the same as your prior
reservation.
“If you find your reservation on another website at a
lower rate, contact our customer care team right
away. We'll match the price of the other deal if:
1. You contacted us immediately after booking with
all the details of the other deal including a link to the
offer on the website and the exact price being
quoted.2. The other deal is bookable online and is still
available when we check.3. The other deal is subject to the same booking
conditions you’ve chosen with Booking.com.
4. The conditions of your booking with us still allow
penalty-free cancellations and
modifications.”(booking.com,2013)
“The currency converter is for
information purposes only and should not
be relied upon as accurate and real time;
actual rates may
vary.”(booking.com,2013)
Before you payPlease
Remember
5. Credit Card“Accommodation providers require credit card details in order to guarantee
your reservation. In order to safeguard and encrypt your credit card
information when in transit to us, we use Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
technology for our services. In the event that your credit card company or
bank charges you the deductible because of unauthorized transactions
resulting from a reservation made on our website, we will pay you this
deductible, up to an aggregate amount of EUR 50 (or the equivalent in your
local currency).”(Booking.com,2013)
That means booking.com has
some good protecting measures
on credit card security. But you must ensure the
credit card reservations are
made using Booking.com's secure server…
Another good news with credit
card security under Privacy and
Cookies is :
“Your credit card details are stored for a maximum of 10 days. After that, your credit card data will be either permanently deleted from our systems or will remain hashed in our system for fraud detection purposes. This is unless you have chosen to store your credit card details in your personal account.” (booking.com,2013)
It means your information of the credit card will be deleted after 10 days ,unless you
choose to keep them in your personal
account.
9. Disclaimer“(n)either we nor any of our **shall be liable for (i) any punitive, special, indirect or consequential loss or damages, any loss of production, loss of profit, loss of revenue, loss of contract, loss of or damage to goodwill or reputation, loss of claim, (ii) any inaccuracy relating to the (descriptive) information (including rates, availability and ratings) of the accommodation as made available on our website, (iii) the services rendered or the products offered by the accommodation provider, (iv) any (direct, indirect, consequential or punitive) damages, losses or costs suffered, incurred or paid by you, pursuant to, arising out of or in connection with the use, inability to use or delay of our website, or (v) for any (personal) injury, death, property damage, or other (direct, indirect, special, consequential or punitive) damages, losses or costs suffered, incurred or paid by you, whether due to (legal) acts, errors, breaches, (gross) negligence, willful misconduct, omissions, non-performance, misrepresentations, tort or strict liability by or (wholly or partly) attributable to the accommodation (its employees, directors, officers, agents, representatives or affiliated companies), including any (partial) cancellation, overbooking, strike, force majeure or any other event beyond our control.”(Booking.com,2013) What is it??
It means,They won’t be liable for nearly all kinds of loss
or damages including:
Wrong information (rates, availability and ratings) of the accommodation;the services rendered or the products offered by the accommodation provider(even disclosed on the site)….etc.
Except:
“direct damages due to an attributable shortcoming of our obligations in respect to our services”(Booking.com,2013)
But the definition of
inappropriate service is
very unclear…
“7. By completing a booking, you agree to receive an email which (i) offers (including third party offers to the extent that you have actively opted in for this information) relevant to your reservation and destination, (ii) inviting you to complete our guest review form.
8. The completed guest review may be (a) uploaded onto the relevant property's information page and (b) (wholly or partly) used and placed by Booking.com at its sole discretion (e.g. for marketing, promotion or improvement of our service).We reserve the right to adjust, refuse or remove reviews at our sole discretion.
10. Booking.com exclusively retains ownership of all rights, title and interest in and to (all intellectual property rights of) (the look and feel (including infrastructure) of) the website on which the service is made available (including the guest reviews and translated content).” (booking.com,2013)
Intellectual property rights
What do they mean?
Once you have made a
reservation with booking.com,
it means you agree to receive
advertising email from them
and you will be asked to fill a
guest review form when or
after you leave .
You can choose to publish the review with your preferred name or anonymity.(under “privacy and cookies”)After that, this review has no relation with you. Because it becomes booking.com’s ‘intellectual
property rights’.
Booking.com canAdjust your review!
Refuse it!AndRemove it!
-Without your permission!!
Let’s move to “Privacy and
Cookies”
“When you visit our website, even if you don't make a
reservation, we may collect certain information, like your IP
address, or browser, and information about your
computer’s operating system, application version, language
settings and pages that have been shown to you. If you are
using a mobile device, we might also collect data that
identifies your mobile device, device-specific settings
and characteristics and latitude/longitude details. We
might also calculate and process data related to the type of
apps installed on a mobile device, such as the name of the
app, an app description and the category it belongs to. We may
also receive information about you when you use certain
social media services.”(Booking.com.2013)
Booking.com will collect all your details when you visit their web site, no matter whether you will use their services.
What do they want from you?
Collecting data also
includes: “web pages you
viewed, which
referring/exit pages you
entered and left from,
which platform type you
have used, date and time
stamp information and
details such as the number
of clicks you make on a
given page, your mouse
movements and scrolling
activity, the search words
you use and the text you
type while using our
website.”(booking.com,201
3)
"When traveling in cyberspace, you provide information to others at almost every step of the way. Often this information is like a puzzle that needs to be connected before your picture
is revealed. Information you provide to one company may not make sense unless it is combined with information you provide to another company.“(Privacy Rights Clearinghouse,2008)
Therefore, the most important target of booking.com collecting your information is to share with cooperative partners, third-party service providers, as well as competent authorities.
Booking.com will doing ‘Marketing Activities’ by
using these personal collecting information:
• Such as promotional Email with similar travel-
related products and services;
• individualized offers are shown to you on the
Booking.com website, in mobile apps or on third-
party websites, including social media sites;
• They also may phone you to promote some
particular offer.(booking.com,2013)
This is the reason why you may see
booking.com’s promotional offer(always is the accommodation
you have visited recently) on other
websites which you are browsing(outside of the booking.com).
What is cookies?
They are not edible…
“A cookie is a small amount of
data that a website places on your
computer.”(booking.com,2013)
Why do websites use cookies?
“cookies are mainly used to remember the choices you have made – choices such as the language you prefer and the currency you use. They will also make sure you are recognized when you return to a website.”(booking.com,2013)
How does Booking.com use cookies?
Technical cookiesFunctional cookiesAnalytics cookiesCommercial cookies
Booking.com uses 4 kinds of cookies:
)(
By using these cookies, booking.com is able to remember your preferences(like preferred currency and language, the property you viewed earlier), gain insight on how visitors use the website(every details of you doing in the website), and show you Booking.com advertisements on other websites.(Booking.com,2013)
These cookies will be stored at
maximum 5 years if you do not erase them from your
browser. (booking.com,2013)
Can I refuse these cookies? especially from the third party service providers…Yes, you can . But
booking.com may
restrict some
functions and
services, in addition,
you will still receive
promotional
advertisement…“If you choose not to accept certain cookies, you may not be able to use some functions on our website. Plus, opting out of an online advertising network doesn't mean that you won't receive or be subject to online advertising or marketing analysis. It means that the network you opted out of will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and browsing patterns.”(Booking.com,2013)
In addition to using
cookies, Booking.com
sometimes uses ‘web
beacons’. What is ‘web beacons’?
“A web beacon is a tiny graphic image of just one pixel that’s delivered to your computer either as part of a web page request or in an HTML email message. Either directly or through service providers, we use these pixels as part of our online advertisements either on our website or on third-party websites to learn whether a user who is being shown an online advertisement also makes a reservation; to track conversion with partner websites and to analyze a user's traffic patterns in order to optimize the travel-related services we bring to you.”(Booking.com,2013)
cookies can be accepted or refused, while web beacons will exist as a tiny graphic image and cannot be refused. It means you will be monitored by booking.com if you visit their website and
can’t say NO!
It means..
}
Although, "online consumers are in
many cases very quick to provide
significant amounts of personal
information, if given an incentive.”
(Brown&Muchira,2004)
However, Introna(1997)
said: “without some
preserved private spaces,
society would lose its
most valuable asset: the
true individual”
{Now, you have a better understanding on what you are agreeing to and I hope everyone think carefully when you are attending to use online services and online platforms.}
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