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How's this a lie? Displaying sold out items isn't a lie, at best is unnecessary information.

• acdha 5y ago
  It depends on whether you’re displaying real information or not and how stale it is. If you list something which sold out last week because you’ll have more next week, that’s not unreasonable. If it’s something you stopped carrying 6 months ago, that’s sleazy. If you do the thing many booking sites do where it displays fake “n people are looking at this!” and “quantity just dropped to x!” notifications, it’s deeply unethical.
  • libertine 5y ago
    >If it’s something you stopped carrying 6 months ago, that’s sleazy. But this is also mentioned in the article, if you overwhelm people with out of stock stuff their intent to buy drops. >If you do the thing many booking sites do where it displays fake “n people are looking at this!” and “quantity just dropped to x!” notifications, it’s deeply unethical. I mean, that's similar to Amazon having "Only 15 Units Left In Stock", is this unethical as well? In my point of view, if the information displayed is FAKE - than that's falls into false advertising, and it's illegal. In come countries there are fines for that (I know, I know, no regulator controls online advertising - but that's the problem of the regulator). If the information is real, I don't think it's unethical.