Anonymity pays -- somebody

The EFF provides a little item about an old (say a year or so) online activity, first documented by people who found Amazon charging different prices for the same thing to different people: Websites Invade Your Privacy to Charge You More (link courtesy of Boing Boing). The thrust of their piece is that, "Yep -- it's good old-fashioned price discrimination, the inevitable result of an increasingly 'personalized' Internet." The attachment to the "'personalized Internet" is understandable, considering the source, but spurious. It has everything to do with anonymity, but has only tenuous ties to privacy. That is, (and they note), ". . . the site does not need to know your specific identity, just that you are the consumer who is willing to pay X for Y." [Emphasis mine]

So how is that different from the car salesman or trader in a bazaar sizing you up based on the artifacts you carry -- style of haircut, clothes that are au courant, watch brand, car you drove up with, etc. (all of which correspond more or less to the cookies and data these Sites use to profile customers for price presentation)? Besides which, is that information "private?" Could be: but is the information even yours to keep private? That is, to whom does the information about your past purchases belong: you or the other party? Most trivial actions -- like buying airline tickets or books -- rarely fall under terms of non-disclosure or secrecy. Yes, it's in your possession, so maybe it's yours. But the credit card that is also in your possession will have somewhere on its back, "This card is the property of . . ." Hmmm.

What this pricing activity is proving out is the glory and magnificence of capitalism in action [ ;-^) ] in a world of more perfect information. Given that we are all capitalist democrats, we ought to be admiring it. Yet we aren't because it seems like unfair advantage. So, we react (well, the EFF reacts) by changing the framework of the game to include a new or at least alternative constraint.

Ultimately, the story is just more proof that this whole business of identity, privacy, anonymity, information distribution, etc. is exceedingly complex and defies single-perspective-based simplification. The forces upon it are broad and often unanticipated. Therein is the challenge.

Posted by Grayson at June 8, 2005 07:58 AM