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Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Stop Bots From Ruining Holiday Shopping (cnet.com)
Democrats have proposed the "Stopping Grinch Bots Act" to make it illegal to use bots to shop online and also outlaw reselling items purchased by bots. "Lawmakers label them 'Grinch' bots because, during the holiday season, resellers use them to buy inventory of highly coveted toys that can be resold at highly inflated prices," reports CNET. "Often times, these bots are so quick that they can purchase entire stocks of items before people can even add them to their carts." From the report: Sens. Tom Udall, Richard Blumenthal and Chuck Schumer along with Rep. Paul Tonko made the announcement on Black Friday. While the proposed legislation is focused around the holiday season and toys, the Grinch Bots act would apply to all retailers online. Toys aren't the only items that resellers online send swarms of bots to. Security researchers noted that bots designed to buy rare sneakers are a persistent issue, as developers will create AI to buy shoes from companies like Nike and Adidas as quickly as possible. The proposed bill leaves it open for security researchers to use bots on retailer websites to find vulnerabilities. "Middle class folks save up -- a little here, a little there -- working to afford the hottest gifts of the season for their kids but ever-changing technology and its challenges are making that very difficult. It's time we help restore an even playing field by blocking the bots," said Schumer, a Democrat from New York, in a statement.
"Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Stop Bots"
then had to go and spoil it with the rest of the summary title.
Corporations, robots, and pets are legally people! We all have rights!
-R2D2
Table-ized A.I.
Laws won't stop this. How the hell are the cops going to even know how to charge someone doing this? Why don't the companies just make their own internal bots that buy out their own inventories and then resale them as independent scalpers? (The marketing dicks call this a new 'channel')
kill ticket bots!!!
Liquidity!
Arrest the bots? Terminate them?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Yeah, it sucks. The best revenge is don't buy it; leave the scumbags sitting on inventory they can't move.
If you can get it at MSRP, great.
Not that anyone is going to listen to my advice.
I'm not a Republitard, but this is just Dems grandstanding, trying to show that they're doing something for the little guy.
First teach your kids that most of these toys are fads. you don't need to see that concert at $500 plus per ticket. and you certainly can wait for that "must have" latest fad, chances are if you wait a week or two your desire will change and eventually you will train yourself not to rush at things. Then these people who run the bots will only have the extremely stupid to make a profit from who will eventually run out of money.
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Notice that none of the shit affected by this is actually important to living. Oh my god, Ticketmaster isn't maximizing profit. That's the real argument, and let's be honest, Hollywood has the DNC by the balls. But, it's not just that ... my child will die without a fucking hairdorables doll. Never mind that last year's "must have" doll is already forgotten. Fuck the marketers and the soccer moms. Don't buy any of that shit.
... against the current.
Capitalism does not have a soul and legislation is not a religion.
And the reference to middle class is vacuous.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Advertising toys that will be out-of-fashion in a month, cost $250, and cost $2.50 to make in China to kids should be illegal. Actually, many European countries and Canadian provinces actually DO prohibit ads targeted at children under 12.
Don't want to be taken advantage of by the secondary market? Don't buy your kids the latest faddy junk; teach then some discipline. Plenty of fun toys that aren't the latest lemming frenzy.
Instead of going after the bots that solve shortages, why aren't the lawmakers going after sellers who cause them by selling below market equilibrium?
Oh I know. It's because this is feel-good legislation designed to help those congressmen get re-elected by people who don't understand supply & demand (i.e. most people).
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Who the fuck would present such a stupid bill?
Oh! Those morons! Carry on...
Are we talking about the cravings of the mindless masses? The latest marketing manipulation? The fashionable fad fantastic?
Those who are so easily swayed are fodder for the market. They are the devolved. Let them quickly go into debt and fade from this earth. Let them leave the gene pool. Bah humbug, xmas shoppers!
...omphaloskepsis often...
They finally don't have to worry about sniper software always catching up to their interface changes... they can just file charges against the distributor.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
autonomous trading anyone? seems to fit the same definition for those who consider stocks toys
You're not rich enough for that.
if ever there was an indicator of a shit society... but leave the bots alone, they deserve their efforts in pilfering from the stupid.
We should enact legislation to rebalance selling practices. A strong economy depends on sensible public policy. I say enough of these disingenuous pre-arranged sale events. Sales should be unintended accidents where the merchant is happy to unload the product to whoever will buy it, and never planned in advance. No loss leaders allowed, and no running at a loss to gain market share by squeezing out the competition. The legislation should include penalties substantial enough to make enforcement profitable. The only way that bad business can change is by consistent and repeated punches to the wallet.
This is pure feel good BS that will have little significance.
Just make sure the legislation applies to event ticket sales. That's one area where bots are a huge problem. (It could easily be solved by real anti-scalping measures, but the venues and promoters like the instant sell-outs, so there's no push from the money side to fix it.)
Is this more of an issue for hot items that are in limited supply or for items with sufficient supply, but limited "door buster" type sales? The latter is pretty close to false advertising--naming a price that will only be honored for a very limited supply. I would love to see those restricted on the sales side.
Upright and honorable when Wall Street does it via millisecond trading, but lets not let the little man get on that gravytrain lest capitalism collapse.
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Working of Error
The mere fact this is possible implies the goods were priced below market value to begin with. If goods are priced at market value, such arbitrage is not possible.
Market "equilibrium." Those nasty stores and gas stations daring to sell bottled water at such low prices during times of local crisis. They must be stopped! HOW DARE THEY not charge $99 per gallon?! The scalpers do...
How about we put a stop to high frequency algorithmic trading in the stock market too whilst we're at it? ... no? ... makes you too much money, you say? ... the common man be damned, you say?
So free speech, Bitches. You think the current Supreme court won't agree?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The problem is not the bots, the problem is people who pay the increased prices.
Ticketmaster has been a problem forever and suddenly the government wants to worry about toys.
It's up to companies to put up better technological barriers to scalping. Ticketmaster is in bed with the scalpers so that will never happen.
But customers can refuse to buy just released products at jacked up prices.
Work Safe Porn
If that's not what OP meant, exactly WHAT could be done to "go after sellers who cause them by selling below market equilibrium." That's literally what the sentence means. Basically, force sellers to extract maximum profit from each transaction instead of charging a reasonable price. Wonderful idea there... Anyone agreeing with OP is a complete, and utter MORON!
Laws will stop bots! Yeah!!!! Rejoice everyone. These two crack me up with their ineptitude on a daily basis. I am a local constituent and I see them in the news making outrageous proclamations all the time.
Instead of simply cutting the price, you keep the price the same and add a rebate. The rebate is limited to one per household (or however many the manufacturer thinks a single household would really need), and the item must be purchased from a list of stores that normally carry the product. Rebates neatly prevent resellers unaffiliated with the manufacturer (i.e.eBayers) from taking advantage of arbitrage to eat up the discounts themselves.
Problem is the final buyers hate it. They don't see it when resellers have marked up a price (or not passed on a discount they received) - they just assume that's the normal price. So instead all they do is complain endlessly about how rebates are evil and they hate having to spend 5 minutes to make $10 (which works out to the equivalent of $120/hr), and why can't they just cut the price instead? Well if they did that, some reseller would buy up all the stock and you wouldn't have been able to buy the item in the first place.
Yes there were problems with rebates being denied. But the manufacturers hate that as much as the people submitting the rebates. The manufacturers would contract with a rebate processing company to handle the rebates, and pay them a lump sum sufficient to pay for the rebates plus some. Anything left over after the rebates were paid off, the rebate company got to keep. So some of them set about denying as many rebates as possible. Since it's the manufacturer which takes the reputation hit from this, not the rebate processing company, the manufacturers don't like it. Most of them have begun using the better rebate processors. I haven't had one denied in 5 years.
On whether or not this is a good idea. No doubt most of those comments will be submitted by bots.
So these lawmakers are concerned about bots stealing toys from children at Christmas. But exactly the same principle applies to trading algorithms used to buy and sell stocks. The trading bots arbitrage the market faster than any human can react and skim their profits off the buy/sell cycle. It's an easy fix. Just randomize the execution time from a trade anywhere within a one minute block of time. That would level the playing field for humans and let them buy lots of toys for their kids.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Buy the things that you don't need at the prices you cant afford! What ever happened to the first R, Reduce, It was bad for business!
Marketing and advertising people are con artists and nothing more, dont fall for their bullshit.
capcha: idiots
LMAO
Therein lies the problem. Sneakers should not be rare. If sneakers are "rare" then they're overpriced. Only poor people waste money on "rare" sneakers. Don't be that person.
Because we could use that law to stop high speed trading.... it's bots buying and reselling.
We will never teach our kids to know better nor will we stop buying this crap for them or limit it in any way.
Best solution is to design and produce it ourselves to keep the money here.
That'd be awesome if so, and I think anyone that's ever had to resort to buying an item at an inflated price off of ebay in order to get it in a reasonable time frame will agree. I'm sure someone is going to come in here and say that it's against the free market, but why should someone just be able to run a script and then walk into a walmart and carry out the entire stock of game consoles only to resell them at twice the price on ebay? Did they do any of the work to create those consoles, advertise them, or bring them to market? Absolutely not. So they shouldn't be able to benefit off someone else's hard work.
Will this also cover purchasing event tickets? Please?
And define 'bot' to include the seller's own processes to withhold tickets form the market, in secret, to later scalp them for further profit?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
So, 'bots that buy up toys on an open market for resale at a profit should be illegal, but 'bots that buy up stocks on an open market for resale at a profit should not?
Anyone who thinks my post was over the top, wade through the following document very carefully:
Are you ready to stop living the 40-40-40 Plan and Start Living your Dreams?
Note that the image of the black guy (by implication, the author) is facing away from the center of the page. This is symbolic of turning is back on dull orthodoxy.
Not also the visual appeal to bright lights, big city and the casino-ish orange/yellow/red reflective highlights, which form the focal point of masthead Oz.
Almost everyone retires broke and dependent on some other entity other than a giant pile of coins or bills amassed under a mattress. That entity might be a commercial bank (fairly solvent) or a National Bank (aka Uncle Sam, with the deepest pockets of all) who is paying out a stipend on what you paid in (a fairly standard business model wherever banks gather).
Even if you retire to a giant mansion, entirely bought and paid for, you're still dependent on Uncle Sam to continue to enforce your property rights (those who employ a private vigilante retinue rarely sleep with both eyes closed, so there's a downside to that model, too).