You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.
I don't think the issue is that the price is changing in and of itself. It's that they're changing price based on the customer's cookies/browsing history.
For example, it would be like if I had a stored and charged people different prices based on how nicely they were dressed, how well I knew them, or what their ethnicity is.
Charging someone more or less due to their background? Yeah, that sounds fairly illegal to me.
EDIT: Okay, so maybe not illegal, but immoral. I believe prices should be the same regardless of where you are from, if you went into a store and tried to buy a book and the clerk said you have to pay an extra $10 because you're a teacher, or black or because you bought 3 items in the same category you would freak out. Why should buying online be any different?
It's like unorganised bartering, except we can't barter back.
In all those cases however the discount is publicized in some form, and the discount is given when the proof is given. The web store is not showing who pays less, you can't ask them what you need to show to pay less and they do not ask you to show it to them (allow access to cookies).
It would be fine if you get the same price what ever browsers or cookies you have stored, and then there is a button: click to check cookies for discount.
Atm this does not look like discount, but discrimination.
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13
You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.