Southwest Airlines will not let third parties monitor its prices. A new article on The Outline investigates how Southwest has intimidated every startup that has tried to alert consumers about fair drops on Southwest’s website. SWMonkey, the latest effort to share Southwest’s prices, announced the end of its service two weeks after launching thanks to lawsuit threats from Southwest. Before SWMonkey, the airline giant had already sued or threatened suit against three similar startups by invoking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a controversial piece of anti-hacking legislation that the airline has used for much broader legal purposes. Before Southwest forced its discontinuation, SWMonkey had made only a $45 profit.
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