4 ms·
tl;dr: algorithmic pricing may provide a covert collusion channel, unaddressed by existing law.
by aebtebeten 4y ago
tl;dr: algorithmic pricing may provide a covert collusion channel, unaddressed by existing law.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- AndrewSwift 4y agoYep, I have a friend that worked in anti-trust for the French government and she gave the example of "garanteed lowest prices" — looks great on the surface but actually serves to constantly monitor the pricing landscape.
- terminalcommand 4y agoFor example I know that some e-commerce sites adjust their prices by using web scrapers. They scrape their competitors' sites and always offer products to 1 USD less than the competitor to make more sales. I think this should violate competition law, but it somehow doesn't.
- nhchris 4y agoIsn't that how competition is supposed to work? Eventually they won't be able to undercut while remaining profitable.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- terminalcommand 4y agoThey also increase prices if competition sells them for a higher price. This happens automatically.
- sokoloff 4y agoSounds like a startup idea: find a way to identify this scraper traffic and offer different pricing to the scraper (maybe higher, maybe punitively lower).
- kurthr 4y agoYieldstar (home rental price optimizer) immediately came to mind. In some areas more than half of landlords use it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33744136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33744136