Legal Information

Since American Airlines also provides telephone conversations and on-line chats to costumers who need to inquire about a service or make legitimate reservation, the company reserves the right to record and monitor the conversations that will take place. After all, these services are only for business or transaction purposes. Once a customer contacts the company, it automatically means that the customer is subject to having his or her conversations with the company monitored, recorded and transcribed for security purposes and future reference (Carey, 2001).

American Airlines also allow forums to take place on the website, yet it strongly discourages the misuse of these forums. A part of the practice of ethics of the company is to maintain healthy conversations in the forums, in which all messages and materials circulating do not violate the terms and conditions indicated in the site. The company has the right to remove topics and contents which may be a threat, defame or harass the legal rights, right to privacy and of course, the name of the company (Carey, 2001).

Lastly, American Airlines highly discourages any content that may threaten, humiliate, harass or degrade other people on the basis of their religion, ethnicity, color, race, gender, sexual preference, ancestry, age and national origin among many other concepts prone to discrimination (Carey, 2001). On the other hand, Delta’s website seems to show a lighter treatment on legal, ethical, regulatory, security, confidentiality and international issues.

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The welcoming introduction on the website is a notice of incorporated terms, where the terms published on the website may include but are not restricted to concepts limits on liability for material goods and even for death or personal injury. Legal notices on Delta's websites are all about the transaction itself and how a customer will go about with the processes involved. The notices published guides customers every step of the way.

Examples of issues discussed under legal notices include rules on changes to contract terms, refusal to passport, notice of overbooking of flights, liability for delay or cancellation, baggage limitations, time limitations, airline partners, international passengers, check-in requirements, currencies, identification and on smoking (Carey, 2001). Unlike American Airlines, Delta website seems to be focusing more on the confidentiality and security handling. Delta takes good care of every information a customer discloses.

All the information a customer sends is kept and retained on the records of the company for future references. In case a customer does a follow-up, it becomes easier to handle. The company also uses the information you disclose to see how effective the staff is in attending to your needs. Delta assures its customers to safely keep the information a customer sends to the website. This means that Delta will not sell a customers personally identifiable information to any third party to protect confidentiality and practice maximum security.

What Delta can only share to third parties are aggregated and anonymous information about website visitors. The only time Delta will have to disclose an information to a third party is when a customer is under legal process or subpoena or when the law requires the company to do so. The airline company may also provide domestic and foreign government agencies that have access to the documents and pieces of information a customer discloses to the company as part of Delta’s security regulations. This is in accordance with the security regulations of other countries, too (Carey, 2001).

Delta's website also makes use of technologies which include tags and cookies among many others, to make the services offered easier to use and navigate online. The compant also abides by COPPA of 1998, or the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 which suggests that if a child under 13 years of age disclosed an information to the company without the consent of the parent or the guardian, the parents or the guardian may contact the company so that Delta can remove the information released.

If a customer does not want information released to be used for promotional purposes, he or she may email Delta and tell the company to remove the information included in a specific promotional email (Delta, 2007). Southwest Airlines is another website with a more happy-go-luck look and feel. The website welcomes customers with promos, rewards and special offers. The policies Southwest Airlines has are focused on information collection and use, purchases, contests or surveys.

Customer communication is of course prioritized, where the company has set up online services that make communication between the company and the customer easier and more convenient. Unlike Delta, Southwest Airlines discloses both non-personally identifiable and personally identifiable information to third parties. The former is shared to advertisers and parters while the latter is shared to reward preferred partners, product and service suppliers and company agents. It uses cookies, log files and other similar technologies like Delta. Security regulation is practiced primarily through the use of online passwords (Southwest Airlines, 2007).

References

American Airlines (2007) Legal Information. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from http://www. aa. com/aa/i18nForward. do? p=/footer/legal. jsp Carey, Bryan (2001). Delta. com: Good Airline, Mediocre Web Site. Epinions. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from http://www. epinions. com/content_45779357316 Carey, Bryan. (2001). American Airlines Will Get You Where You Need to Go!. Epinions. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from http://www. epinions. com/content_44042718852 Delta Airlines (2007). Delta Privacy Policy and Security. Retrieved June 15, 2008, from http://www. delta. com/privacy_security/index. jsp

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