Browser Fingerprints Lead to Price Discrimination

Comments

• Crewman@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’ve seen this happen with flights. Depending on where I set my VPN, the prices will change.

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  • Adramis@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve seen this happen with flights in a different way - I repeatedly check the same flights over and over and have noticed the price going up across multiple views even on the same day.

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    • Crewman@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I used to clear my cache, and that would help, bet it hasn’t changed anything the last time, so I guess they figured out that workaround.

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  • rar@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Shouldn’t this become illegal?

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    • essellburns@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It is in many places with consumer protections.

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• Penguinblue@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This has been going on for years, including inside the EU, for those wondering. You can test to see if it happens for you by going to a flight website, getting a price for a flight, then go back a few times to search for the same flight.

  The question of what you do to fight it is by clearing the cookie for the website, using a different browser and/or changing your location/block tracking (use a VPN or tor). Usually clearing the cookie is enough.

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  • jormaig@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    If clearing the cookie works, then this is not browser fingerprinting. Browser fingerprinting is about storing information about your browser (screen size, languages enabled, user agent, canvas rendering, and more) you can find whether this information is unique for your browser in amiunique.org

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    • FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Ironically by using Firefox you’re already completely unique since Firefox has like 0.5% marke share lol.

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    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Thanks mate !

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• radix@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  What can we do about this? Do any browser add-ons exist to test different locations and different browser fingerprints to find the lowest price?

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  • worfamerryman@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m guessing someone will have to figure out the algorithms through reverse engineering for each site then put together an extension. I will need to have some kind of vpn to change the ip address though.

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    • BrokebackHampton@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I'm sure our geriatric politicians will get to regulation of abusive online practices any minute now

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  • masterofn001@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They do.

    Canvas blocker is one.

    If you use firefox, you dont need a plugin. Go to about:config find privacy.resistfingerprints.enabled Double click and flip from false to true.

    Done.

    Go to browserleaks.org and check your fingerprint.

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  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You might want to consider faking your geolocation. That’s how people played Pokemon Go.

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  • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You can try chameleon on ff but I haven’t fully tested it myself. Could also modify config value if u don’t want an extension but u need to look up the values and it can be quite tedious.

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    • radix@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I guess my issue is that I want an extension to automatically plug in all the different user agents, geolocations, etc. to find the cheapest one. Having an extension to enable me to change these things myself is nice but not what I’d find most useful, you know?

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• FluffyPotato@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Not sure but this sounds like it would already be illegal in Europe but I can’t find anything concrete. Prices are the same when checking different stores via VPN though.

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  • jormaig@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It is illegal in Europe as GDPR doesn’t talk about cookies but about collecting and trakcing user data and granting permission for it. So, if the user refuses the form and you still collect their browser fingerprint, then that’s illegal.

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• sunbeam60@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’m sure a lot of this is going on … but this article is pretty poor.

  First of all, they are hawking a VPN product. So it is in their interest to make the problem seem big.

  Second, they argue VPN can shield against cookies. That’s to do with the browser, not the connection.

  Third, their frequent use of the loaded “artificial intelligence” just bothers me … most of the algorithms they describe has nothing to do with AI/ML, but sounds like fairly simple, rules-based decisions. In fact, if I was interested is giving a discount to people who lived close to a competitor of mine, training an ML algorithm to do it sounds error-prone and poor.

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  • ShadowRebel@monero.town ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We are recommending VPNs in general, but are not “hawking” or selling a specific one.

    Second, we did not say a VPN hides against cookies. Cookies can easily be erased in the browser. This article is discussing browser fingerprints, which neither a VPN nor cookies deal with. Your reading comprehension is shockingly low.

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    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Or maybe it wasn’t written well?

      “Simplified Privacy is here to help with a VPN solution that can obscure your browser fingerprint and enable you to step back and more clearly see discrimination.”

      That sounded like hawking a specific product; I’m sure you could understand why.

      You are arguing in the article that a VPN helps obscuring your browser fingerprint - and then say in your response to me that it can’t.

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• mefinity@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  on my way to change my browser fingerprint so it will be sold for less

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• Sera@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’ve heard of the idea of charging some people more depending on how much they are willing to pay but I thought it wasn’t done yet, wow

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• Gazumi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Where money is concerned, corporation like to operate any way that they think they can until fined.

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• ineedaunion@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  No reason to shop online, or anywhere honestly. Down with consumerism and Capitalism.

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