I wondered how Southwest found my auto-checkin mashup so quickly.  Until I did a Google search of “southwest automatic checkin” and found that my corresponding blog entry showed up at number 6.  I have little doubt that Southwest subscribes to such a feed and uses it to notify their legal department of any new potential infractions.

So was my mashup caught by a mashup?  Four out of five conspiracy theorists say yes!  (The fifth doesn’t want to cross his secret CIA paymasters.)

This Southwest incident has made me somewhat introspective.  As I started to muse in my previous post:

… it would be nice to have not just Terms and Conditions that allowed the site and its content to be reused freely. …  It’s unfortunate they can’t do this without changing their checkin and boarding procedures in some way.

I really wonder whether in the long term whether Southwest’s procedure can withstand the onslaught of “bots” like mine.  It seems doubtful.  But the consequences of being overrun by “bots” is already causing alarm in some places.

For a very thoughtful look at the risks, the consequences, and maybe some ways to approach solutions, I highly recommend checking out the Long Now Foundation’s excellent podcast featuring Daniel Suarez talking about Bot-Mediated Reality.  Based on that I can’t wait for his book to be rereleased ;-).