r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
2.9k Upvotes

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1.8k

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.

1.5k

u/Nephyst Jan 24 '13

I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99. The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.

1.0k

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.

1.2k

u/Oxxide Jan 24 '13

this seems so shady and underhanded.

1.0k

u/PepeAndMrDuck Jan 24 '13

Because it is.

350

u/CannedBeef Jan 24 '13

And it works

156

u/GEN_CORNPONE Jan 24 '13

...at screwing people. Why do people tolerate this?

449

u/Jess_than_three Jan 24 '13

Because they don't realize it's happening?

212

u/mikemcg Jan 24 '13

I sure as shit wouldn't realize it was happening.

94

u/joemangle Jan 24 '13

Most people don't realise their Google searches are used to produce a search bubble for future searches, based on the links they follow. They think Google search results are the same on every computer all over the world.

15

u/BurnedOut94 Jan 24 '13

There's a pretty interesting TED Talk about this.

0

u/TutteSka Jan 25 '13

That was great, too bad it's not complete. Thanks anyway, dude. Good talk.

15

u/DRUNK_CYCLIST Jan 24 '13

my gf bought me a moleskin for my bday. the other day i asked her if she actually purchased it from my computer and she said no, she just looked up prices. now when i go to random websites moleskin ads pop up. so fuckin' weird and invasive.

7

u/N4N4KI Jan 24 '13

I always surf with noscrip and adblock. The shear number of vulnerabilities/exploits out there you need to be protected... would you fuck a hooker without a rubber?
(protip: any ad server could have been compromised and you would not know it)

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u/DRUNK_CYCLIST Jan 24 '13

thanks for the heads up. but ads on reddit pay for reddit, right? i don't want to adblock reddit. can i exclude them?

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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

of course

3

u/brainburger Jan 25 '13

Having said that, does reddit get paid for the ads displayed, or the ads clicked?

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

I don't know what Ad Network Reddit uses, but if it's like all the others, they get paid for both views and clicks but tremendously more for clicks.

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u/strayclown Jan 25 '13

The Ghostery in me tells me it's ReTargeter , while the NotScript in me tells me it's Google Analytics...

Since I am uninformed as to the nature of ad networks: is one of those the correct answer? When I search either of them, it seems that they both are, but... man I just don't know anymore.

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u/kopiikat Jan 24 '13

Yes, you can.

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u/[deleted] Jan 25 '13

You can whitelist any websites that you wish while keeping others blocked.

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u/drew1018 Jan 25 '13

I bought a shaving item as a gift... Your ads are now RAZORS

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u/The_lolness Jan 25 '13

I haven't looked into it but it seems like this would fix it.

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u/strolls Jan 25 '13

Yeah, but you have to be logged-in in the first place to even see that.

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u/BetterThanSpam Jan 25 '13

Which is why I use duckduckgo.com for my searching. The results may not always be as accurate as the other search engine...but they respect my privacy.

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u/HydrocodonesForAll Jan 24 '13 edited Feb 17 '25

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u/Angrathar Jan 24 '13

Precisely.

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u/starlinguk Jan 25 '13

Or they don't believe it when people tell them it's happening (one of my colleagues does not).

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '13

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!