Slashdot Mirror
Google Patents Profit-Maximizing Dynamic Pricing
theodp writes "A newly-granted Google patent on Dynamic Pricing of Electronic Content describes how information gleaned from your search history and social networking activity can be used against you by providing tell-tale clues for your propensity to pay jacked-up prices to 'reconsume' electronic content, such as 'watching a video recording, reading an electronic book, playing a game, or listening to an audio recording.' The patent is illustrated with drawings showing how some individuals can be convinced to pay 4x what others will be charged for the same item. From the patent: 'According to one innovative aspect of the subject matter described by this specification, a system may use this information to tailor the price that is offered to the particular user to repurchase the particular item of electronic content. By not applying discounts for users that may, in relation to a typical user, be more inclined to repurchase a particular product, profits may increase.' Hey, wasn't this kind of dynamic pricing once considered evil?"
You can patent something truly horrific, then not use your patent or let anyone else use it. Hopefully that's what they're going for here.
It's not different, that's whole point. Bargaining involves human thought processes. Most human thought processes are poorly understood. If you can create a well-defined procedure that replicates a mysterious human thought process, you've clearly done something innovative.
Which is not to say I'm happy about businesses finding another way to gouge me,...
While schemes like this may drive up profit margins to some extent, I think the goal for a lot of retailers in using schemes like these is to keep the actual prices paid for products private and in house. The schemes prevent competitors from price matching and destroy comparison shopping sites like Nextag and (oops) Google Shopping, since their robots will no longer be able to collect meaningful prices. All the vendors will think "This way customers will just stay on my site" And that will be true, so long as the vendor is Amazon or Walmart.
The backlash will be people reporting the prices/discounts they were given for products when they review them. Vendors will respond by deleting that information from the reviews, which will upset their customers who will in turn switch to review aggregator sites like Epinions.com for their reviews, which will in turn be bought by Google, Amazon, or Walmart.