Surveillance Pricing
Tue, 08/12/2025 - 8:03am
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    17 years
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I saw a piece on local TV about this recently and decided to do a test. I have four computers plus a smartphone that I use for browsing and making online purchases. I shopped out a particular item on Amazon using each of the five devices and got different price every time.
I cleared my browsing history and got different prices yet again. I also tried other large online retailers, like Walmart & Wayfair with similar results.
Apparently, these retailers use your browsing history, location and a variety of other factors to adjust pricing. Anyone else notice this behavior?
Well known, at least for Amazon
The practice is known as “dynamic pricing”. There is a price tracking tool which you may find of interest. See https://camelcamelcamel.com/
John from PA
@bdhsfz6 Which yielded the
@bdhsfz6
Which yielded the lowest price? Or was it all random?
Did prices go down after clearing cookies or using private/incognito browsing?
Personally, I avoid amazon as much as possible. They are the last resort. I will not buy any large ticket item from them either. They've become the chinese flea market. Even worse than ebay.
I decided that they were unethical perhaps in the 20th century
I buy from Amazon as little as I can. I decided that they were unethical perhaps in the 20th century.
I repeated an experiment that I read about. I viewed a CD. $8. I repeated the view. $9. I erased their cookies and viewed again. $8. Etc. etc. Their explanation to the press: they were measuring elasticity of demand!!
I've forgotten many of the things I found offensive.
Then, aside from Amazon there is the Destruction of WaPo. (Secret code for Washington Post.)