Except they always know what you're gonna get....
"Online retailers found to shift offerings and prices" by Callum Borchers | Globe Staff October 23, 2014
You know that friend who always scores hotel deals you never seem able to find? The reason might not be her skill at ferreting out online bargains.
Travel websites and other Internet retailers may be giving your friend better deals than you as part of a high-tech experiment called price steering that gives consumers different search results based on their buying histories, tastes — even the types of digital devices they shop on.
When browsing shoes, for instance, a connoisseur of handmade leather may get different Internet search choices than someone who typically buys knockoff brands.
And in some cases two consumers may actually get different prices for the exact same item, a practice known as price discrimination:
Looks like PRICE GOUGING to ME!
Isn't that ILLEGAL?
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New research to be unveiled by Northeastern University Thursday found that major travel websites and general merchandisers are testing price steering and discrimination in small doses. The techniques can make it easier for online consumers to find what exactly they want, or conversely, harder to get the best deal.
“You do a search for an item and you’re shown some results, but you don’t know if those are all the results,” said Christo Wilson, a computer science professor at Northeastern and coauthor of the study. “Maybe there’s more stuff or better prices that are being hidden from you.”
This has been commented on and known for years.
The Northeastern researchers focused mostly on travel, an industry known for variable — and sometimes mysterious — pricing. But they also tested general merchandisers, finding instances where similar searches for dinner tables, for example, yielded different results: Some shoppers were shown expensive options with gilded mahogany, others got the cheap plastic.
What it is, and we have $een this at the airports, is a further division of society along cla$$ lines. It's all over the Globe, all over my bu$ine$$ and new$ $ections every day.
Price steering and discrimination sit at the intersection of two of the hottest trends in high technology: personalized web browsing and big data analytics.
All that spying power and data collection is not only for the Feds; it's for corporate!
Users of Google’s search engines have undoubtedly noticed its knack for correctly guessing queries even before the typing is finished — as if computers have turned into mind readers.
Can you read what I'm thinking now?
Would tossing the chocolate back into the box give you a clue?
For retailers, all that data generated when you visit their sites — browsing and buying patterns — can help them tailor search results to what they think you really want and — critically — are more likely to buy. Ideally, sellers can push customers toward the upper end of their spending limits because they know the price points at which they’re likely to make a purchase or walk away.
Can I tell you that I'M SO SICK of having to be SOLD on SOMETHING, be it this, wars, politics, carbon taxes, racial and gender division, or whatever else I'm being pitched by every single page of my propaganda pre$$?
Conducted this spring, the Northeastern study examined the e-commerce websites of 16 well-known outlets and found nine, including Orbitz, Travelocity, and Home Depot, that sometimes delivered different results to different customers, even those who used the same search terms. Researchers created dummy accounts to conduct tests and also provided a team of consumers with scripted searches to perform.
Importantly, the researchers concluded tailoring search results to particular types of users is not a widespread practice; discrepancies were infrequent, but in some cases the differences were significant.
Oh, now I feel better.
“The key take-away is, this is going on,” said Wilson. “Companies have a lot of personal information about you, and we do see cases where that is being used to either change prices or change the items that you see. It’s difficult for you as a consumer to protect yourself because these systems are black boxes, and they change all the time.”
So are the voting machines.
This issue has surfaced within the travel industry before.
I'm tired of writing about nothing ever changing except for the worse and per the ma$ter's designs. I'm glad the month is ending and the chocolates almost gone.
In 2012, Orbitz acknowledged steering Mac users to higher-priced hotel rooms than PC users on the theory they have more expensive taste, though the company said the experiment was short-lived.
They always tell us they stopped it before they got caught. HA!
Responding to the Northeastern report, Chris Chiames, a spokesman for Orbitz, acknowledged the travel site displays different search results and sometimes sets different prices for identical hotel rooms. Each technique has a business rationale behind it, he said.
I can't really imagine what tho$e could be, can you?
When users of GPS-enabled mobile devices search for lodging, Orbitz can detect their current locations and automatically steer them toward nearby hotels — something that is not possible for desktop users. That can explain some differences in listings, Chiames said.
Might as well scream out I'm here! Better than a bracelet.
In other cases hotels earmark small numbers of rooms for discounts and make the low prices available only to customers who use Orbitz’s custom mobile shopping app.
“The cost of acquiring that customer is much lower, as they are coming directly to our app,” he said. “We are then able to better reward that member and share the lower customer acquisition cost with more generous rewards.”
You know what? $crew traveling and touri$m anywhere in AmeriKa. If you are from a foreign country, go somewhere else. If you are a citizen, stay home. That's $olves a lot of problems right there.
I'm sure that typo of attitude $ends certain people into Orbitz.
The rewards can be generous indeed. On Wednesday afternoon, for example, The Boston Globe searched Orbitz for hotel rooms in Miami using a desktop PC running Internet Explorer, a laptop computer running Mozilla Firefox, and an iPhone using the mobile version of Safari.
Intrepid investigative reporters!
Results on the two computers were the same but differed greatly from the iPhone. For example, Orbitz quoted a nightly rate for a standard room at the Clinton Hotel South Beach for this weekend that was $41 less on the mobile device. Using Orbitz’s mobile apps gets an even lower price.
Another travel site, Kayak, also quoted a special rate at the Clinton Hotel for mobile shoppers — $13 less. On Priceline.com and Hotels.com, the room rates for the Clinton were the same on the computers and iPhone searches.
Several other online shopping sites singled out in the Northeastern report did not return calls for comment.
Software formulas can assemble a customer’s data into a rough profile: Someone who lives in Wellesley, works at a law firm, and shops using a new i-Pad is likely to have expensive taste and a sizable budget. So the customer’s search results can be modified accordingly.
Related: NSA Unlocking Your Secrets
Turns out they (and the Jewish mafia as well as Israel) are the ones doing all the hacking, not all the designated enemies that don't benefit from it at all.
Only rotten chocolates no one wants left:
Pegging some shoppers as big spenders has origins in brick-and-mortar stores.
$crew those.
How 20th century!
A older, well-dressed man browsing jewelry at the mall before Valentine’s Day might be nudged toward a pricier display case than would a high school boy, for instance.
And while price discrimination is a loaded phrase, it is widely accepted in certain contexts — such as when senior citizens and veterans receive discounts because of age or military service.
Those discounts were allegedly to thank veterans for risking their lives in service and because the treatment and care of senior citizens and elders is supposed to define us as a humane society.
I'm not arguing they should be taken away, and to see the corporate pre$$ spin this thievery as, oh, well, you know, already do it, whatever. And then they sit back in their newsrooms and wonder why they have lost the minds of the American people, or maybe they don't. Maybe they are just smug elite writing for and of the same elite crowd.
Boosting sales may be retailers’ chief motive, but there can be real value for consumers, said Justin Borgman, chief executive of Cambridge big data firm Hadapt. Borgman said he has a thing for expensive shoes and would prefer high-end products when he searches online.
What did I.... never mind.
But retailers aren’t always transparent about their pricing strategies, Borgman noted, and that could backfire on them with consumers.
“It’s probably the sort of thing the general public isn’t conscious of,” Borgman said. “You could argue it’s one of darker sides of what big data can do for you.”
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What an odd photograph to choose for the article -- almost as if it is another in a long line of subtle mind manipulations to evoke certain images in your head. One also, at this point, wonders if the photograph is even real or not some shopped pos propaganda for just such a purpose.
That's the problem with the Globe: I know what I'm gonna get (Gump never looked at the inside lid?).
"Stephen Burgard, head of Northeastern journalism school, dies at 66" by Travis Andersen | Globe Staff October 29, 2014
Stephen D. Burgard, the director of the Northeastern University School of Journalism who also served as an editor at the Los Angeles Times, has died while on sabbatical, school officials said Tuesday.
Bruce Ronkin, interim dean of Northeastern’s College of Arts, Media, and Design, wrote in an e-mail to the university community that he was sharing the news of Burgard’s death “with deep sadness.”
Ronkin’s message did not provide details on when or how Burgard, 66, of Arlington, had died, and a Northeastern spokeswoman said she had no additional information.
Burgard joined the faculty at Northeastern in 2002 after more than two decades as a newspaper reporter and editor, Ronkin wrote.
A member of the editorial board of the Times from 1990 to 2002, Burgard helped lead the newspaper’s editorial page coverage of the aftermath of the Rodney King trial and also was part of the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Ronkin said. The Times said no one was available Tuesday night to comment on Burgard’s death.
Ronkin wrote, “He was a vital part of our community, and he will be dearly missed. I hope that we can draw strength from each other and from the larger Northeastern community.”
Dan Kennedy, the acting director of the journalism school, said in a phone interview on Tuesday that Burgard had been on sabbatical during the fall semester but was planning to return as director in January.
“This has really been difficult news for all of us,” Kennedy said. “It’s been pretty hard to get anything done over the last day. But you know, we’re just going to try to move forward, because he certainly would have wanted that.”
Kennedy credited Burgard with helping the journalism school embrace reporting in the digital age.
“I think what Steve wanted to do was move as quickly as possible into the digital present, but at the same time, do so with respect for the ethics and the tradition of our craft,” he said.
In addition to his reporting and academic careers, Burgard was the author of “Hallowed Ground,” which was published in 1997 and landed on Amazon.com’s list of the Top Ten Religion Books that year, according to his official university biography.
His second book, “Faith, Politics and Press In Our Perilous Times,” was published in 2010.
The book was his edited selection of essays on covering religion by leading writers, according to the biography.
Kennedy said that Burgard leaves three adult children. Funeral information was not available on Tuesday night.
“Please join me in offering sincere condolences to Steve’s family and friends,” Ronkin wrote. “The family plans a celebration of Steve’s life later in the fall.”
Ronkin’s message also included information on counseling available for students and staff, which is standard protocol, the university said.
Kennedy said that Burgard was “just absolutely terrific” as a colleague.
“He [was] kind of a big, blustery guy, but he [was] also somebody who clearly cared about the people he worked with,” he said. “He was more than a mentor. He was a friend.”
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