Buyers' Web Sites Ire Sellers
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Folks who want to get a jump on holiday shopping can also get a jump on holiday sales thanks to some Web sites that are essentially road maps for deal seekers. Some retailers, however, say, Hey, too much information is not necessarily a good thing. CNN's Ann Kellan joins me to talk about this. What happened?</s>ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Too much information too soon. Basically, what people are doing is logging on to sites like fatwallet.com, where retailers pay to post sales and specials and people also can share information about good or bad experiences they have had with certain stores and good and bad deals they have found. Apparently, word got out about a number of after-Thanksgiving Day sales that certain retailers were planning, and people posted it at this and other Web sites. OfficeMax is one of the retailers. We talked to Steve Baisden. He told us they just got wind of this yesterday, notified fatwallet today to take down the information, that it's a copyright violation. They didn't want that information out yet. Fatwallet responded, took the information down. What harm is it in knowing this information ahead of time? Obviously, if you know something is on sale two weeks from now, you won't buy it at a higher price now, and OfficeMax doesn't like the idea that the competitor can log on to the Web site to find out its sale plans early. They said, "It's obvious it was obtained in an inappropriate way" -- this is according to OfficeMax -- "Once we discover how it was obtained, we will take appropriate legal action." He goes on to say he doesn't think that this will hurt holiday sales, and it's not a huge problem. Now, we did get in touch with fatwallet.com. According to Tim Storm, he said it's obvious it was obtained in a -- "We did not get this information ourselves. It was consumers sharing the information they had. Where they got it, I don't know. It could be insider information. It could be from a printing company. It could be from a newspaper. And he went on to say his site and sites like this are self-policing and don't sensor information. It's in their policy statement. If they are notified about information posted that violates trade secrets or is in any way illegal, it will take down the information, which it did in this case. So they got the information out there. But, Marty, I don't know. They're taking it down if they're finding it to be illegal.</s>SAVIDGE: Well, the consumers find it as a good thing, I suppose.</s>KELLAN: Consumers and sharing information, the site will say it is good for consumers to know what's going to go on sale after Thanksgiving. Retailers will say, We'll decide when you know that information. You have to know that these sites, once the news got out today, the traffic on the sites went up.</s>SAVIDGE: I'm sure. Ann Kellan, thanks very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com