5 ms·

Only the last 20 years? Only the US?

• kalleboo 9y ago
  Other countries often have much stronger advertising standards regulation and consumer protection laws. In the US the attitude seems to be more "will I get sued over this"? That said the FTC does seems to be on the case in this instance.
• PeterisP 9y ago
  The particular issue described above (raising "base" prices to show a larger discount) is common in USA but illegal and thus very rare pretty much everywhere else. I'm quite sure that amazon.de and amazon.co.uk didn't apply this practice. There's a rather common set of "truth in advertising" laws (e.g. to show a "x % off", the base price can't be made up ("recommended price") but you must have sold this item for certain amount of time for that old price already, the sale can't last for more than x months (in that case, that becomes the base price), etc, etc. USA has chosen not to adopt such laws.
  • lentil_soup 9y ago
    is this really the case in practice, though? Are there websites to measure it for amazon.co.uk/.de? Asking honestly as I always assume they get around those regulations in some way.
    • koyote 9y ago
      As noted above you can check with camelcamelcamel even on .de. or .uk links. Advertising and 'sales' are quite strict in the EU and consumer protection is very strong.