Should be able to charge you more than someone else?  Should be
able to charge you more than someone else? The unfounded worry
over price discrimination based on shopping history.  MONTREAL
-- The theme of this year's Computers Freedom and Privacy
conference here is autonomy, and an unexpected subtext were
left-of-center activists fretting about whether data-mining will
let online businesses charge customers different prices.
Usually this is expressed as: Will charge me more for certain
products based on what it knows as my purchasing history?  In
September 2000, reports said that was offering the same DVDs to
different customers at discounts of 30, 35 or 40 percent. Amazon
said it was a random price test, but after criticism, it decided
to refund the difference to anyone paying the higher price and
pledged not to do it again.  This week at CFP in Montreal, Jeff
Chester and Chris Hoofnagle both warned about the privacy
implications of price discrimination becoming widespread.
(Chester runs the Center for Dig