This is bad, but no surprise: https://papersplease.org/wp/20...

Thanks for the correction, which I have made in my article. In my linked article about CRS's, I had mentioned that such a public offering was pending, but hadn't noted the IPO. The largest fraction of Amadeus stock continues to be held by private equity firms, however.

I think your "motorcyles to Mack trucks" analogy is about right. My affiliation with Airtreks.com is described in detail in a "Disclosures" section of each of my books and on the Disclosures and Disclaimers page of my Web site, which is linked from my home page and every page of my blog (including each article in this series), and which goes into more detail than that of any other travel author, journalist, or blogger I know. Because it seemed particularly relevant, I also mentioned it inline within the article to which it most pertained.

I disclosed my association with Airtreks.com partly as part of the basis of my expertise in the field, knowledge and partly because some might see it as a conflict of interest. If you want to disregard what I say for that reason, you are of course free to do so. However, Airtreks.com is not and has never been a competitor of ITA Software. ITA Software is a b2b provider of services for other travel companies; Airtreks.com has deployed its proprietary technology solely for its own use, rather than (to date) licensing it to any third parties. Airtreks.com focuses on integrating unpublished (consolidator) prices from multiple sources; ITA Software focuses on published fares, or at most on consolidator prices from a single source. Airtreks.com focuses exclusively on complex international journeys optimally priced as multiple tickets; ITA Software's priority is the simplest domestic journeys that can be priced as a single ticket. Basically, Airtreks.com targets and has optimized its systems for the niche furthest from ITA Software's core market. Some companies license services from ITA Software (for domestic prices and tickets) and also are affiliates of Airtreks.com (for complex international journeys), just as Sabre for a time offered a co-branded version of Airtreks' service to its subscriber travel agencies, alongside its own pricing tools (which like those of ITA software are optimized for single-ticket domestic published fare pricing).

ICANN's New Commitment to Transparency Arrives Via Secret Process (more background here)

If you want to request your own records, do so ASAP: Even while stalling on responses to pending requests and appeals -- some unanswered after almost 2 years -- the DHS has recently moved to exempt more of this data from disclosure or requirements for accuracy, relevance, etc. Even more Privacy Act exemptions for PNR's and other "Automated Targeting System" data are pending, and could be finalized at any time. BTW, if you travelled to, from, or via the EU, or on an EU-based airline, or made reservations or bought tickets in the EU or through an EU-based company, or if your reservations were stored in the EU-based CRS Amadeus, you also have the right to request your travel records from these travel companies.

The link in the Wired New story is broken -- Regulations.gov doesn't use static URL's for individual documents.

The Identity Project comments, including as an appendix the text of the relevant law, are at:

http://hasbrouck.org/IDP/IDP-ATS-comments.pdf

Those comments also expain how the "Automated Targeting System" would include information on domestic flights and travelers, in addition to international travel records.

There's more background on my blog, and the Identity Project blog:

http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001184.html

http://papersplease.org/wp/2006/12/05/every-travel er-is-a-target/