What is really at stake in a legal dispute between American Airlines and The Points Guy, and its far-reaching consequences.

On January 18, American Airlines formally submitted a legal complaint against The Points Guy, a travel website owned and managed by media conglomerate Red Ventures, accusing it of violating its frequent flyer program’s terms of use. The latter launched an application that allows users to access and track their miles across different airlines in just one place. 

To perform such operations, the TPG app collects customer data from American Airlines through a prompt that asks users to input their AAdvantage number and password. American Airlines claims this act to be an unauthorized use and access of member account data and unlicensed use of its logo and other trademarks. 

Before filing the lawsuit, American Airlines sent a cease and desist order to Red Ventures with the hopes of solving the matter without the need to go to court. However, TPG countered American Airlines’ order by forwarding a case to Delaware’s state court on January 11 to seek declaratory relief. American Airlines’ response to this was simple yet challenging―a case indicting TPG and Red Ventures in a federal court in the Northern District of Texas. 

American Airlines spokesperson Andrew Trull expressed strong condemnation of TPG’s actions, stating that Red Ventures were trying to access flyers’ personal information and account data outside the airline company’s standard usage of confidential information. Moreover, American Airlines stressed that they “take customer data and proprietary information incredibly seriously, and want to make sure it is protected and secure.” 

Brian Kelly, CEO, and founder of The Points Guy, continues to defend his camp as he highlights the main objective of the TPG app―to make miles tracking and points management more accessible and more convenient to users. The app aims to “help users learn about points, miles, and loyalty programs while maximizing their earning potential and discovering how to efficiently burn those earned points and miles to see the world.”

With the existing lawsuit from American Airlines is requesting statutory damages for data privacy, copyright, and trademark violations, TPG decided to fight back and raise the matter to higher authorities as they remain steadfast in advocating the right to consumer choice. 

What this dispute is really about…

American Airlines claim this case is about protecting customer data, but is the security of customers’ data really in question? Red Ventures has established itself as a reputable enterprise that owns highly respected brands like The Points Guys and Expert Flyers. Many American Airlines customers chose to voluntarily share information about their account and authorize The Points Guy to access this information. What’s the harm in that? 

The answer is that American Airlines is not willing to give the clients to decide what to do with their data. When signing for the AAdvantage program, every consumer must accept terms and conditions. These frequently unread terms and conditions take ownership of the consumers’ data related to the program and give all the right to control them to American Airlines. 

The bottom line is this: Even if the points are in the consumer's account, they do not belong to the consumer; they belong to American Airlines.

Permitting consumers to decide what they do with their logins would mean American Airlines would be yielding some control back to the consumer over their own account. Yet, American Airlines is not ready to give even an inch back to the consumer. 

When it comes to consumer data rights and their protection, the US is still lagging behind. It is important to remember that the US Constitution does not explicitly state anything regarding the right to privacy; however, the US Supreme Court forwards that there are certain amendments in the Bill of Rights that entail the said right. One of which provides the right against self-incrimination, justifying the protection of private information. Moreso, the Supreme Court has restricted the scope of a federal law that makes it illegal to obtain unauthorized access to computer material and/or data. 

The Points Guy is the underdog here. American Airlines gets to write the rules, and they write the rules in their favor. 

Whatever decision the courts make on this case will set an important precedent that can alter the balance of power between the companies and customers in every industry. In 2006, British mathematician and Tesco marketing mastermind Clive Humby said that data is the new oil, the single most important natural resource of the world over which wars were fought. The precedent set in this case may tell us who owns it.