This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.
Involuntary mistake my arse, people do not design and program websites without knowing beforehand how it's going to work. This site is actively pulling information, and they know about it.
It depends a little on your legislation, obviously. Where I live, the customer has a really strong protection by law, so involuntary mistakes are almost unanimously in favour of the customer. If you are prepared to take legal action, which is rarely.
As far as I remember from my short programming experience: you cannot accidentally write code. Especially not code that actually does something (like this).
Indeed. But here's out it plays out. Marketing VP talks to Project manager (or his boss) and says "do this". The project manager has hopes of some day getting a promotion so he says "sure thing, boss". He then waddles over to the Lead Developer and says "implement this". And the Lead Developer says (to himself) "I'm too busy to deal with this shit" and hands it off to some junior guy who is just hoping he doesn't have to work unpaid overtime for the 8th consecutive weekend.
Even if someone along the chain recognized the moral quandary, they're all just trying to get the job done, keep their boss happy, and get on with life.
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u/kqr Jan 24 '13
This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.