• "In relation to the editorial, the question is whether Orbitz has lost the trust of their potential consumers. Only time will tell. "

    "And by doing as you suggest there is a certain risk. Making the assumption that a person will buy higher priced or "nicer" things based on one item such as the suit they wear is silly. Also based on the type of browser, type of machine, or time of day a person comes to the site is not really the brightest light on the block as well. "

    Everybody seems to be viewing this as some sort of hard edged failure. If they misjudge the customer, then everything is wrong. Gee wiz, everyone knows that you can't fully predict what a customer wants from external clues. No surprise there. But they used this as a starting point. It affected what items were featured. That's all. This is hardly 'betrayal of trust', it's not fleecing the customer. It's not like there was no alterntative, if the customer wanted the lower priced deal, they could still get it, no problem. If they had quoted a higher price for the same accommodation, that would be betrayal, but from the article it does nto seem to be the case.

    [It's certainly not like auto dealers are known to do: try to get certain customers to pay a higher price for the same product through psychological manipulation.]

    It was simply a quick and dirty, and probably less than accurate, way of establishing a starting point for the presentation.

    ...

    -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --