this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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It's generally not illegal to raise your prices or set your prices at what your competitors are charging. There are variety of factors that influence a price of an item.
The issue is that the FTC is alleging that the algorithm artificially boosted prices and keeping the prices that high when competitors matched the price.
While it's not outright collusion on price fixing, it does reek of using monopolistic practices to fatten the bottom line.
I really can't believe its legal to charge more or less based on a customers location, or probably other data about us. This seems like such a fucking problem.
Really, it's super legal. If you buy a textbook in America or you buy the same textbook in India, the price difference can be 90%, and I recall the publishers legally going after people for having the gall of buying the cheaper textbooks.
And yet, no one says anything when landlords use the same basic tools to price fix rents.
I am also certain that any retailers competing with Amazon -- at least those of sufficient size -- have their own data scientists banging away on optimizing pricing too.