Am I allowed as a business to discriminate my pricing for a product based upon my customers race, sex or age in the US or Australia? No there are laws against that
Am I legally allowed as a business to discriminate my pricing for a product based upon my knowledge of how much money is in that customers pocket?
i.e. if I know customer A earns 100K a year and another customer B earns $50k a year can I legally sell Customer B a justin beiber CD for $10 but refuse to sell customer A the same CD unless they pay me $20 ? Is this legal or not in the USA and Australia ? ( I honestly don't know and am genuinly curious about the law on this in both countries)
This is essentially what these companies are doing to australians
The Australian economy is going very well compared to the rest of the world and the average australian has a high disposable income compared to the rest of the world particularly the U.S.A. As a result Australians will pay more compared to their USA brethren for the same product. The companies know this and it is very clear that these companies are price discriminating against Australians in order to maximize profits.
The question is - is it legal to discriminate pricing based upong a customers location and by inference their wealth? Whether within a single country or across international borders?
I am genuinely curious as to the US and Australia legal answers to this question
(I posted this anon before without realising I was logged out - apologies for dupe comment)
Unless I'm reading the article wrong Adobe have only changed their subscription costs for AU customers not the price of the standalone downloadable versions (which is what most people would be purchasing online from Adobe). A standalone download of Photoshop is still as A$1,168 compared to $699 on the US site. Adobe have been aggressively trying to get their customers onto "subscription" models for their software as it gives them a never ending revenue stream and is more profitable for them. Discounting the subscription price serves this strategy and simultaneously give them a PR "win" in the media while not addressing the main grievance aussies have - the price disparity cost of "standalone" software (which is what most people use). In short Adobe have made a self serving pricing change for PR reasons and dressed it up as "evolving its product offering to provide increased value to subscribers" when it is not actually addressing the real issue.
As seen in the article as well this strategy has worked as the politician Ed Husic comments "“Lowering business IT costs will provide a big boost to small and medium sized enterprises – and we need to keep pushing to see this happen". He seems to believe Adobe have done something to resolve the price differential Australian consumers have to pay for standalone downloadable software when Adobe has done nothing of the sort.
I find it rather ironic that at the end of their article they say this when referring to whether people can reproduce articles of Freedom Press (the books publisher) "In answering such questions, it makes sense to ask Freedom Press. " Surely if they advocate no IP laws then nobody should be asking anybody else for permission! The entire problem with this article is that the proposal relys on peoples good faith and honesty e.g. for potential piraters to consider the effects on the person whos IP is being copied. They seem to forget that not everyone else out there is nice and considerate and that people will always seek to make a buck even at the expense of others.
As an interesting side note if you want to register www.something.com.au you have to be a registered business in Australia and I am pretty sure if you want.org.au you have to be a registered non profit organisation in Australia. There have been no major squabbles over domain names etc.. to my knowledge because the business registration process is fairly rigorous. The only problem I can see with our (australian) model is that it doesn't cater to the average joe who wants a website but does not own a business.
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Am I allowed as a business to discriminate my pricing for a product based upon my customers race, sex or age in the US or Australia? No there are laws against that
Am I legally allowed as a business to discriminate my pricing for a product based upon my knowledge of how much money is in that customers pocket?
i.e. if I know customer A earns 100K a year and another customer B earns $50k a year can I legally sell Customer B a justin beiber CD for $10 but refuse to sell customer A the same CD unless they pay me $20 ? Is this legal or not in the USA and Australia ? ( I honestly don't know and am genuinly curious about the law on this in both countries)
This is essentially what these companies are doing to australians
The Australian economy is going very well compared to the rest of the world and the average australian has a high disposable income compared to the rest of the world particularly the U.S.A. As a result Australians will pay more compared to their USA brethren for the same product. The companies know this and it is very clear that these companies are price discriminating against Australians in order to maximize profits.
The question is - is it legal to discriminate pricing based upong a customers location and by inference their wealth? Whether within a single country or across international borders?
I am genuinely curious as to the US and Australia legal answers to this question
(I posted this anon before without realising I was logged out - apologies for dupe comment)
One of them was used in a successful reconnaissance flight over Sydney before Sydney was attacked with midget submarines in 1942
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Sydney_Harbour#Prelude
Quote "The aircraft was damaged or destroyed on landing, although its two crew survived"
Unless I'm reading the article wrong Adobe have only changed their subscription costs for AU customers not the price of the standalone downloadable versions (which is what most people would be purchasing online from Adobe). A standalone download of Photoshop is still as A$1,168 compared to $699 on the US site. Adobe have been aggressively trying to get their customers onto "subscription" models for their software as it gives them a never ending revenue stream and is more profitable for them. Discounting the subscription price serves this strategy and simultaneously give them a PR "win" in the media while not addressing the main grievance aussies have - the price disparity cost of "standalone" software (which is what most people use). In short Adobe have made a self serving pricing change for PR reasons and dressed it up as "evolving its product offering to provide increased value to subscribers" when it is not actually addressing the real issue.
As seen in the article as well this strategy has worked as the politician Ed Husic comments "“Lowering business IT costs will provide a big boost to small and medium sized enterprises – and we need to keep pushing to see this happen". He seems to believe Adobe have done something to resolve the price differential Australian consumers have to pay for standalone downloadable software when Adobe has done nothing of the sort.
I find it rather ironic that at the end of their article they say this when referring to whether people can reproduce articles of Freedom Press (the books publisher) "In answering such questions, it makes sense to ask Freedom Press. " Surely if they advocate no IP laws then nobody should be asking anybody else for permission! The entire problem with this article is that the proposal relys on peoples good faith and honesty e.g. for potential piraters to consider the effects on the person whos IP is being copied. They seem to forget that not everyone else out there is nice and considerate and that people will always seek to make a buck even at the expense of others.
As an interesting side note if you want to register www.something.com.au you have to be a registered business in Australia and I am pretty sure if you want .org.au you have to be a registered non profit organisation in Australia. There have been no major squabbles over domain names etc.. to my knowledge because the business registration process is fairly rigorous. The only problem I can see with our (australian) model is that it doesn't cater to the average joe who wants a website but does not own a business.