I had an incredibly interesting conversation last night about price discrimination (yes, I am being somewhat facetious about the incredibly part... but only somewhat). Price discrimination, for those who don't like to use jargon, is when the seller of a good charges some people one price for the good, and others another price. My initial reaction whenever I hear of this is to say, "Why the hell would I pay more for the same thing than someone else?", but it's actually quite common. For example, hardcover books are the same good as paperbacks, yet hardcovers cost about twice as much, and people buy both. Generic brand foods are basically the same as name brand foods, the price is almost always significantly different, yet people buy both. Coupons allow people to substitute a little bit of work/time for a discount, another type of price discrimination - this includes those annoying mail in rebates that always sound like a great deal when you buy the good, but then when you get home you realize you have to get a stamp and fill out a form and write the address and now it will actually cost you 20 minutes of work to save $5. Anyway, price discrimination allows firms to sell more goods and make more profit, and while this practice has little to no benefit for the consumer, it doesn't seem like a horrible thing because in general the consumer sees both options and has a choice. Now, however, this knowledge and this choice is now always present, due to the ease of collecting data on the interweb. Yes, I know that tons of people are fighting over electronic privacy rights and wearing tinfoil hats and using anonymizing proxy servers to stop the government from watching them watch ridiculous videos of drunk college kids online, and they are almost all crazy and paranoid. However, this does affect you and me more directly than you might think. For example, Amazon has been found to charge people less the first time they use their website. Now, it's hard to complain about being charged less, but the thing is, they didn't tell anyone they were doing it. Like a crack dealer, they get you hooked on their stuff for cheap, then jack up the price. Amazon knows that you have used their site because they put a 'cookie' on your computer whenever you buy something from them. As things are right now, this is completely fair and legal, but let's take these ideas one step farther. Now let's say that Amazon has access to your Facebook information. (Have you noticed that on Facebook you get updates whenever someone buys things online? What makes you think that Facebook isn't sharing your information with other companies?) What if Amazon decided to start charging all college graduates extra? What if they could charge you more depending on your occupation, or how much money your parents make? What if the supermarket could do the same thing? Today the prices already depend on whether or not you are a member of most stores, but what if they also depended on your previous shopping habits? The DuMP could suddenly decide to start charging you $10 for ice cream, because they know how much you love Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey. Once price discrimination is hidden from the customer, it suddenly seems unfair, although there are no laws in place to prevent this. What exactly are your rights as a consumer? I wish I knew.