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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

I dropped my car off for state inspection by my usual mechanic. Then I found a coupon in the local paper for $10 off an inspection at that place. When I went to pay, I showed the coupon but the mechanic told me, "oh I already did that. You're a regular, we take care of you!" I don't think I've ever seen a website that could do that.

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Imagine if a site did that haha.

"We've been tracking you, you're a regular. Here's 5% off for spending ~13min per day on our website from IP 192.168.0.1"

I think they are talking about e-commerce sites which have logons and order histories i.e. Amazon and Newegg.

There are sites that do that!

Expecting complete privacy and anonymity from a website that you give your credit card info, your full name, your address makes zero sense

Perhaps, but rubbing your tracking in their face is still going to give them the creeps.

It would give me the creeps.

So it bothers you that they TELL you that they have your purchase history, not that they DO have your purchase history?

I'll fully admit, it seems counter-intuitive, but yes, it does.

I think the reason is that while I know somewhere in my mind that Amazon (using them as an example, since I order from them frequently) has a huge quantity of information about me, but it's not something I think about on a day to day basis.

However, the moment they do something to bring my attention to the fact that they have extensive information on me, such as a fictional "you usually buy a movie every Saturday Night, and it's Sunday and you haven't made a purchase, would you like to buy a movie now?" would immediately bring the awareness of their tracking to the front of my mind, and create the associated worry about "just how much do they know about me?"

I know that the answer to that question is "a lot," and enumerating exactly how much they might know about me is a very long process. It makes me question "can I trust Amazon to use this to my advantage, and not theirs?" Even if they never do use it in an "evil" way (which I believe will be the case), the capability is still unsettling to me.

Actually, I agree with you. It brought to mind when Facebook does that creepy "you probably know these people" thing based on knowing X and Y and going to Z school.

I gave it the data, I know I voluntarily handed it over, and yet I still pause and think "holy crap" sometimes.

"spending ~13min per day on our website from IP 192.168.0.1" isn't a purchase history any more than a plainclothes security guard following you around a department store is a purchase history.

No (smart) website would actually say that. They'd say something like, "Thanks for being a regular! Here's a discount." Like a friendly checkout clerk, rather than a stalker. So then tech folks know they're probably tracking stuff like that, but you knew that anyways.

What "tracking"? It's a website where you make purchases, it would take a special effort to not have a record of your purchases.

I'm a Zappos "VIP" which means I get a few tiny benefits when I shop at the "vip.zappos.com" website. So at least one site does do the "regulars get a bonus" thing.

(It also means I bought too many shoes at some point in my life.)

Too many shoes? There's no such thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJcw4yoIseo

Many websites offer discounts to their regulars. You could mimic this specific behavior by automatically applying a coupon code to checkout baskets of regulars, with some text explaining how much you love them.

Of course, you might want to let users know that you do this, and that means emailing them, and that makes this more of an emailed coupon offer, which is back to being more like a traditional coupon approach, but either way hopefully you can give your regulars some warm fuzzies.

Doesn't Amazon do the opposite? Charge less to newbies so they get hooked and charging more to the regulars because they're hooked.

Same with most subscription services like ISPs and phone companies. Get you in with a low cost deal to get your hooked. Here's the trick though, you can call and just ask for a better rate, tell them X company is looking to give you a better deal, but you want to keep them. I did it with my DSL.

Did the same, said their direct competitor was going to offer me 30% less, they gave me 25% off for the next year. Not bad.

Can anyone confirm they do this? Would hate to feel punished for loyalty.

No, it's a fabrication. Amazon used to a/b test prices (but don't anymore), so people would see a lower/higher price when they deleted their cookies (thus putting them into the opposite a/b class). There is no evidence that Amazon has ever increased prices for older customers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com_controversies#Differ... for more details.

Really? So how do they distinguish I am a new user or not, if I am not logged in? From IP address? Maybe I need to reset my router, get a new IP, visit Amazon in private browsing mode and then doing the search so I have the price before logging in...?

Amazon leaves a cookie on your computer even if you're not logged in. It remembers what products you've looked at recently.

Which is why I mentioned using a private browsing tab, so those cookies would be deleted/not used across from normal browsing mode.

Would be interested in seeing some stats/research on whether this is true and how much prices are affected by it.

Citation needed.

Amazon does stuff like that all the time. They just don't tell you. And it's not always an adjustment in your favor.

Yes. Think of how this improves customer loyalty overtime, as opposed to feeling like you're constantly getting a bad deal.

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