*Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t.* /Amazon bills itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company.” Yet its algorithm is hiding the best deal from many customers./ by Julia Angwin and Surya Mattu ProPublica, Sep. 20, 2016, 8 a.m. One day recently, we visited Amazon’s website in search of the best deal on Loctite super glue, the essential home repair tool for fixing everything from broken eyeglass frames to shattered ceramics. In an instant, Amazon’s software sifted through dozens of combinations of price and shipping, some of which were cheaper than what one might find at a local store. TheHardwareCity.com, an online retailer from Farmers Branch, Texas, with a 95 percent customer satisfaction rating, was selling Loctite for $6.75 with free shipping. Fat Boy Tools of Massillon, Ohio, a competitor with a similar customer rating was nearly as cheap: $7.27 with free shipping. The computer program brushed aside those offers, instead selecting the vial of glue sold by Amazon itself for slightly more, $7.80. This seemed like a plausible choice until another click of the mouse revealed shipping costs of $6.51. That brought the total cost, before taxes, to $14.31, or nearly double the price Amazon had listed on the initial page. What kind of sophisticated shopping algorithm steers customers to a product that costs so much more than seemingly comparable alternatives? One that substantially favors Amazon and sellers it charges for services, an examination by ProPublica found. […] Continua qui: https://www.propublica.org/article/amazon-says-it-puts-customers-first-but-i...