On Orbitz, Windows users directed to cheaper hotels
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Donald Marron Guest blogger
The fun economics story of the day is that Orbitz sometimes looks at your computer鈥檚 operating system to decide what hotel options to show you. Dana Mattioli breaks the story over at the Wall Street Journal:
Orbitz Worldwide聽Inc.聽has found that people who use聽Apple聽Inc.鈥檚聽Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.
The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people鈥檚 online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information鈥攊n this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac鈥攖o start predicting their tastes and spending habits.
Orbitz executives confirmed that the company is experimenting with showing different hotel offers to Mac and PC visitors, but said the company isn鈥檛 showing the same room to different users at different prices. They also pointed out that users can opt to rank results by price.
The WSJ emphasizes that Mac users see higher-priced hotels. For example, Mattioli鈥檚 article is headlined: 鈥淥n Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels.鈥�
My question: Would you feel any different if, instead, the WSJ emphasized that Windows users are directed to lower-priced hotels? For example, Windows users are prompted about the affordable lodgings at the Travelodge in El Paso, Texas. (Full disclosure: I think I once stayed there.)
As Mattioli notes, it鈥檚 important to keep in mind that Orbitz isn鈥檛 offering different prices, it鈥檚 just deciding which hotels to list prominently. And your operating system is just one of many factors that go into this calculation. Others include deals (hotels offering deals move up the rankings), referring site (which can reveal a lot about your preferences), return visits (Orbitz learns your tastes), and location (folks from Greenwich, CT probably see more expensive hotels than those from El Paso).
