Give Us Your Personal Data Or Pay Full Fare 342
ebh writes "Noted in an AP story about how fees make it difficult to compare air travel costs, is how the airline industry is moving toward tailoring offer packages (and presumably, fares) for individuals based on their personal information. Worse, 'The airline association said consumers who choose not to supply personal information would still be able to see fares and purchase tickets, though consumer advocates said those fares would probably be at the "rack rate" — the travel industry's term for full price, before any discounts.'"
In Australia this has been handled legislatively (Score:5, Informative)
In Australia this has been mostly fixed legislatively under the 'component pricing' laws. [accc.gov.au]
Yes Amazon do this *currently* (Score:5, Informative)
I first noticed when I did a search for a media player, I clicked through and it refused to give me a price unless I logged in. I click the 'why we ask you to login' link and it made some kind of BS claim about customer service. I got my price.
Then I then logged out, tried to create a new account, and tried again and got that *same* price (same IP, I think they're smarter about covering their tracks), so I then used a works proxy with a different IP address, and created a new account and was offered a cheaper price.
They're still up to their old games, just better at hiding them.
That was only a few months ago.
Re:Illegal cartel (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes Amazon do this *currently* (Score:2, Informative)
I seriously doubt that. This is your paranoia going further than reality.
What you probably saw was an item with a minimum advertised price. The rule on those is often to only show you the price on an item that's been added to your cart. It has nothing to do with tailoring the price.
If use of a proxy changed the price it was probably based on a geographic change.
If Amazon were regularly showing different prices based on some kind of personal profiling, we'd certainly know about it. Thousands of sites reference Amazon prices on individual products every single day, and there's never any mismatch.
Re:so... (Score:5, Informative)
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/01/29/030223/safeway-club-card-leads-to-bogus-arson-arrest [slashdot.org]
Re:so... (Score:2, Informative)
groceries aren't less expensive. to strongarm ppl into giving up their data the supermarkets made the loyalty price the normal price and the normal price is now just a total ripoff.
good thing supermarkets give you loyalty cards on-site so all the information you put on the form can be false. every 6 months or so get a new card under a new identity. pay with cash.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)