A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts • Hacker News Board

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#251

Post by luckylion » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 6:49 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #155

cortesoft wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying these bot accounts have opted in to receiving emails? You don't validate the email when someone signs up?

The site terms and conditions are displayed very publicaly and accessible to anyone who cares to read them. By entering your email address you are opting-in for transaction related emails, including new order confirmations, shipment notifications, and yes cart reminders. It's spelled out for you. It's the same for almost every ecommerce site. That's different than marketing emails, which require a separate explicit o…

> By entering your email address you are opting-in for transaction related emails

You realize that you can't send marketing emails without double opt-in, right? "Hey, you forgot to buy these ..." is definitely a marketing email.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#252

Post by jussij » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:07 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #191

axlee wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want the "pure" news as in 1921, subscribe directly to AP/AFP/Reuters/EFE. The world has changed, and most of the added value of newspapers now comes from contextualization that you seem to disregard to having no value, despite being the higher journalistic effort. It's easy to report that a chicken died crossing the road, it's a lot harder to explain what chain of events led to a chicken dying crossing the ro…

> The world has changed, and most of the added value of newspapers now comes from contextualization that you seem to disregard to having no value, despite being the higher journalistic effort. But that's not what most of them are doing anymore. It's not so much context as it is agenda. The stories are written to lead you to a particular conclusion. From right now: NY Times: Republicans are abruptly pushing Americans…

I would say Fox News is a classic example of a Rupert Murdoch news outlet.

And since Murdoch likes to run his news outlets with an iron fist, these news outlets tend to report the news in a manner that strongly reflects Murdoch's thinking at the time.

Any thing Murdoch has owned and run has always comes with a level of Murdoch bias.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#253

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:07 AM UTC

Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

[deleted]

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#254

Post by chokma » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:09 AM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #171

shultays wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find not including tax better tbh. That way people are being reminded how much tax they are with every purchase.

Every EU bill should come with the price without VAT (value-added tax) and with the VAT applied, leading to the same result. The only difference is that the VAT is a certain % depending on your country (mostly 15-25%), making it easy for a merchant to calculate it with a single data point. Percentage is also always a fixed round number, so you can calculate it in your head when you stumble upon "+ VAT" somewhere with…

Your are right, normally VAT is a fixed integer value. But that is not guaranteed, historically we had decimal values, too. (My father encountered this once at IBM in the time of punch cards - turns out, having to change this on machines with limited RAM is quite difficult, akin to the Y2K problem.)

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#255

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

>When did this happen? Why? Did people lose interest in actual news? Is there less actual news to report?

Social media happened.

People have been made to think that they have got what they needed from a news article from just the title, image, summary as the next shiny news article was just waiting below to scroll.

News media are under tremendous pressure to entertain the few who actually clicked the article and is reading it.

World over only those news media which started out as traditional newspaper have some journalism integrity left and are serving news as it is. They are paying for that by going bankrupt, getting sued, journalists getting murdered etc.

More over people are getting news only from those sources which gives the news 'they like', rather than going to source which reports factual news.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#256

Post by barnabee » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:21 AM UTC

rubyron wrote: post #101

disposekinetics wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is abandoning a cart really rude behavior? I sometimes do it just to see if they'll spam me as a test of if I want to do business with a site.

An abandoned cart reminder email sent a few hours later has a ridiculously high conversion rate - around 15% in my experience. Online vendors aren’t going to stop that practice, especially when the big e-commerce platforms make it easy to do.

Reason enough that they should be illegal or at least strictly and specifically opt in, not as part of general marketing consent.

If a customer really wants or needs something they’ll go back and buy it. The world doesn’t need the excess consumption of people psychologically manipulated into buying stuff they weren’t going to.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#257

Post by hrktb » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:32 AM UTC

zoomablemind wrote: post #149

hrktb wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d assume parent’s point is regarding the “which is ridiculous because e-commerce storefronts should do that in the first place without going through the whole checkout process.” part. There’s a lot of legitimate case were showing shipping price upfront is just not doable or valuable to the customer. BTW there are a surprising amount of shops for specialized goods that won’t even list the final price at the end. The…

Even the Y2K-style ecommerce stores usually had a separate S&H section for some guidance. These days the H part (handling) seems less in vogue (perhaps still common on ebay), while S part is pretty predictable if not free. It's the T (taxes) part that may be still a tipping point these days, but it's just between vendor and your state,

We are in agreement that there needs to be explanation on what's going on, and not just "we'll set some price yon won't know why".

In my experience, the most fluctuations were on international shipping by small vendors. Lego bricks for instance, where it makes a big difference if you request 5 small pieces that weight 20g total and can wait 3 months, or if it's 500+g in a middle sized box and you want it in 2 days.

Even with average indication on what to expect, depending on the combination you are requesting the vendor might use a different carrier, different shipping method and so on. They could make it more simple with a range of arbitrary standard fees, but then it costs a lot more to the customer, putting the vendor at a disadvantage price wise. In particular people have visceral reactions to overly high shipping prices.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#258

Post by milliondollar » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:33 AM UTC

VonGallifrey wrote: post #250

milliondollar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. Learning how to read the news is a skill just like everything else. The direct links of the internet make it harder, but one still needs to try and understand the context of the publication and how the article is presented. A-heads are entertainment.

This is the "You are holding it wrong" opinion I guess. If A-heads are entertainment then why does it say A-head and not Entertainment? I am not at fault here if I don't know what the hell A-head is supposed to mean and just think that this news site is kinda garbage. What exactly about the presentation of this article was I supposed to pick up on and see that it is entertainment. It is the exact same presentation th…

This is a very literal approach. I assume that when you watch network TV you assume everything is coming at you with the same purpose and intent (news, talking head show, some documentary like 60 minutes.) Just because you want everything you read online to be "hard news" doesn't mean it will be. It takes a bit of work to understand the context of what you are seeing. So yes, you are holding it wrong.

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#259

Post by rawoke083600 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

crdrost wrote: post #193

galacticaactual wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I view this phenomenon as a sort of sociological entropy. Anything bad that can happen will happen if the people tolerate it. Same with shitty politicians, encroaching of rights, etc. Its all just a matter of time.

Speaking with my physics hat on I have to caution against this -- I wouldn't call it entropy, and I am very happy abusing that word in a variety of other contexts. (Like at church I will call Satan entropy.) But the reason I'd balk here is that entropy as a phenomenon happens in absence of a driving force. (1) In the present WSJ case, this is not mere indifference on the part of readers: storytelling is deeply a part…

Damnn So why do air molecules not hit the ground ?

Re: A Google bot scrapes pricing info by adding items to carts

#260

Post by WalterGR » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

Youden wrote: post #135

When and why did news cease being news and start being short stories and opinion? This entire article could have been cut down to the last few paragraphs and nothing of value would have been lost. Look at The New York Times in 1921 [0]. Generally the stories are factual and to the point. The entire front page seems to be pure news. There's very little storytelling here, at most there are a few timelines of events. Lo…

We rehash this every time a NYT, WaPo, WSJ, etc. submission gets popular.

It’s off-topic.