Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback • Hacker News Board

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#21

Post by Retric » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 12:00 AM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #12

petesalty wrote: post #3

But this could just be the vendor (not that I'm defending MS). It could easily be a different price for Google, and another for Yahoo, etc. It doesn't mean MS has any knowledge of this, although they could probably police it if it's affecting their reputation.

I'd go further and say that this is a shady blog post from the Bountii crew. If you're going to publicly accuse your competitors of something negative, it's incumbent upon you to be very certain that you're correct. I've emailed them a link to this comment section, and I hope to see this post edited as appropriate.

I don't know how true this is but http://www.butterflyphoto.com/prodinfo.phtml?id=3853&ref... shows gives me 699$. But I can't find it on Bing.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#22

Post by tlb » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 12:07 AM UTC

petesalty wrote: post #3

But this could just be the vendor (not that I'm defending MS). It could easily be a different price for Google, and another for Yahoo, etc. It doesn't mean MS has any knowledge of this, although they could probably police it if it's affecting their reputation.

I don't read John's post as an accusation of wrongdoing. He's just pointing out something that price-conscious consumers would want to know about.

Bountii is much more powerful than Froogle & Bing because prices aren't just X in one store and Y in another store. Bountii is all about helping price-conscious consumers get the deals most people don't find. Good for them for raising awareness of this new kind of price discrimination.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#23

Post by dangrossman » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 12:12 AM UTC

bumblebird wrote: post #13

bdr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they're giving you more in cashback than they make from transaction fees.

True, I'm pretty sure I was a nett loss for them though. As said by another comment, they rely on most people not doing this.

Every single store you shop at pays an extra 1-2% when you make a purchase with that card. Reward cards result in a higher discount fee for the merchant to cover the rewards the bank pays out.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#24

Post by dangrossman » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 12:13 AM UTC

bantic wrote: post #2

I've always wondered what I might be revealing (demographics-wise) through my cookies while browsing, but I never though I might be getting shafted by them! Wonder if Bing is revenue-sharing w/ their vendors this way somehow.

It appears on Microsoft's quarterly financials as "income from overcharging partner customers"...? Unlikely.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#25

Post by bigiain » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 2:21 AM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #7

It's not that difficult. Turn off your cookies. Manually allow them for the rare cases where they're actually necessary. If that's too much work for you, clear cookies or turn on your browser's "privacy" mode before you buy anything. This sort of thing has gone on for years. You used to be able to find a good deal on a flight at orbitz.com, leave to go comparison shopping, come back, and see a higher price. Clear the…

I wonder if a Firefox plugin could have a list of shopping aggregator sites (like Bing and google shopping) and automatically block referrers when using outgoing links from them, and maybe specially treat cookies being set by the sites those links land on?

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#26

Post by mattmaroon » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 5:15 AM UTC

tlb wrote: post #22

petesalty wrote: post #3

But this could just be the vendor (not that I'm defending MS). It could easily be a different price for Google, and another for Yahoo, etc. It doesn't mean MS has any knowledge of this, although they could probably police it if it's affecting their reputation.

I don't read John's post as an accusation of wrongdoing. He's just pointing out something that price-conscious consumers would want to know about. Bountii is much more powerful than Froogle & Bing because prices aren't just X in one store and Y in another store. Bountii is all about helping price-conscious consumers get the deals most people don't find. Good for them for raising awareness of this new kind of price di…

He asks if its even legal. That's an accusation of wrongdoing in my book.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#27

Post by ggrot » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 6:54 AM UTC

oneplusone wrote: post #16

jrockway wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. This is why I usually buy everything from Amazon, instead of some random place that shows up in Google Shopping results.

I read a while back that Amazon does something very similar. They give new visitors a larger discount on certain items compared to regular visitors. Of course googling it now only returns http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/09/06/amazon_makes_regular... so it may be bunk.

This is pretty old news. Amazon experimented with this briefly, caught alot of flak, and stopped.

I recently had an experience where I thought amazon was doing this - I'd get one price when signed in to prime and another cheaper price when not signed in. I called up amazon and the rep was astonished as she could see the exact same thing. A few minutes of digging and she figured out what happened. Amazon was showing me signed in the item shipped from amazon (candidate for prime) and showing me not signed in the item shipped from someone else. When shipping was added in, Amazon was always showing me the lowest price available. In both cases, I was presented an option to choose a different supplier, but it wasn't very prominent on the page.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#28

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 11:01 AM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #26

tlb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read John's post as an accusation of wrongdoing. He's just pointing out something that price-conscious consumers would want to know about. Bountii is much more powerful than Froogle & Bing because prices aren't just X in one store and Y in another store. Bountii is all about helping price-conscious consumers get the deals most people don't find. Good for them for raising awareness of this new kind of price di…

He asks if its even legal. That's an accusation of wrongdoing in my book.

No, it is a question. There is a substantial difference between asking a question and accusing someone of having done something illegal.

Re: Negative Cashback from Microsoft's Bing Cashback

#29

Post by Sidnicious » Tue, Nov 24, 2009, 4:28 PM UTC

amalcon wrote: post #7

It's not that difficult. Turn off your cookies. Manually allow them for the rare cases where they're actually necessary. If that's too much work for you, clear cookies or turn on your browser's "privacy" mode before you buy anything. This sort of thing has gone on for years. You used to be able to find a good deal on a flight at orbitz.com, leave to go comparison shopping, come back, and see a higher price. Clear the…

In a way, this is why the EU's recent discussion on requiring permission to set cookies actually makes sense.

Aside from login, the vast majority of cookies on the web don't significantly benefit the user. The only reason I don't use a browser that ignores or prompts for cookies is that so many websites use them inappropriately these days, and the web would be unbrowsable without them.