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I am an engineer, not a lawyer, but I expect that from a criminal perspective it doesn't count as fraud because it isn't material information, and the consumer

I am an engineer, not a lawyer, but I expect that from a criminal perspective it doesn't count as fraud because it isn't material information, and the consumer rights differ vastly between countries and probably don't cover "dishonest but immaterial information" - there weren't lies on the price, on availability, etc. If a company asks me to implement something I believe is illegal I ask for clarifications from a lawyer. Since I wasn't asked to implement this in a "wrong" way, I never looked into it further.

drclau 5y ago
I’m not a lawyer either. I was thinking that this may fall under false advertising [0]. That is, claiming N people are interested in the product/service while that information is clearly made up. To be clear, I’m referring to an implementation that just uses a number that looks good, disconnected from any sort of metrics. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising
- rsstack 5y ago
  False advertising is narrower than some people would like it to be.
  - techcode 5y ago
    Indeed it's both not ethical not legal in most parts of the world. My educated guess it that only reason it happens anywhere at all - is within "smaller" websites/companies which: a) don't know better because they are mostly just tech people that didn't heave to deal with big company bureaucracy, they have no legal/ethics team - or (hopefully not big chunk) they do know it's not legal, but count on ... b) they are small enough that no one bothers to deal with until amount of money company is making suddenly makes it go over whatever amount makes it worth the effort
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> it isn't material information Why not? The SEC doesn't take that attitude when they catch people artificially manipulating the frequency at which something is trading.
- rsstack 5y ago
  Shirts aren't securities :)
  - MaxBarraclough 5y ago
    Why should the law be any different? Selling cheap products doesn't entitle you to lie, or otherwise break the law, to close the sale. Counterfeit goods are taken seriously by the law despite being cheap. In the case of holiday and hotel websites, they're selling expensive packages.

drclau 5y ago

I’m not a lawyer either. I was thinking that this may fall under false advertising [0]. That is, claiming N people are interested in the product/service while that information is clearly made up. To be clear, I’m referring to an implementation that just uses a number that looks good, disconnected from any sort of metrics. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising

rsstack 5y ago
False advertising is narrower than some people would like it to be.
- techcode 5y ago
  Indeed it's both not ethical not legal in most parts of the world. My educated guess it that only reason it happens anywhere at all - is within "smaller" websites/companies which: a) don't know better because they are mostly just tech people that didn't heave to deal with big company bureaucracy, they have no legal/ethics team - or (hopefully not big chunk) they do know it's not legal, but count on ... b) they are small enough that no one bothers to deal with until amount of money company is making suddenly makes it go over whatever amount makes it worth the effort

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

> it isn't material information Why not? The SEC doesn't take that attitude when they catch people artificially manipulating the frequency at which something is trading.

rsstack 5y ago
Shirts aren't securities :)
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  Why should the law be any different? Selling cheap products doesn't entitle you to lie, or otherwise break the law, to close the sale. Counterfeit goods are taken seriously by the law despite being cheap. In the case of holiday and hotel websites, they're selling expensive packages.