First, I did not mean to insult Mr. Anand Shimpi (I hope I did not slaughter your name) in any way. I was just trying to encorurage him to take a couragous (and personnally risky) stand against these corperate bullies. I believe that whoever does will eventually be vindicated (and will achieve a sort of Internet/free speech/David and Goliath hero status), but of course, I could be slightly wrong.
Anyway, I believe Distinguished was correct when he said that these corporations use these hot deals to get average consumers into the store so they can make profits off of other sales. Thier real problem is the people on the deal sites clean out the hot deals before the average consumer gets a shot at them. And of course we don't take the bate for the other items. Not only that, but some of the extroidinary deal engineers here generate unexpected corporate losses by combining pricematching mfg and store rebates and coupons. We all have seen deals where we actually ended up getting paid to take an item off the retailler's hands. Using the DMCA is grasping at straws. It will ultimately fail because it is too easy to put up a web site. And they can't police the world. The best they can hope for is to slow this train down a bit by trying to intimidate the current leaders.
These corporations are very competitive with each other. That is why they need to price match. But with people like us gaming the system they loose too much, especially when they don't expect it. A clever retailer, say OM, might say, "Hmm Staples is pricematching me. I see they are going to have a coupon and a couple of rebates out on item X next week. I think I'll put that item on sale as a loss leader (slight loss to me). Those deal engineers are sure to pick up on it. They will force Staples to live up to thier policy and take a much more serious loss on it. I will get to make staples eat that price matching policy that costs me so much buisness."
At any rate, I think the deal engineering will continue full tilt, DMCA or no DMCA. The economic forces demand it and the Internet inevitably enables it. Unfortunately, in the long term, the large retailers will be forced to become more savy or be run out of busness. Once they realize they have to take the internet as it is, they will produce sails, rebates, coupons, and pricematches with much less reckless abandon. In otherwords, they will analyze the potential for an unexpected loss due to a deal being engineered. So, they will make many fewer mistakes leading to those truely HOT deals. They have to to stay alive. So, in the long run, the success of the hot deal sites will lead to fewer hot deals. Oh-well. GET THEM WHILE THEIR HOT. Although there will always be a hot deal some where, just a lot fewer unintended ones from the large retailers.
