Comment by ghaff
10 months ago
Companies compare pricing all the time even if it doesn't involve smoke-filled rooms with execs doing tit-for-tat. You don't think your local grocery store knows what the other local chain is charging (or what they're paying their employees)?
Sure. And as I said there’s nothing illegal about that, as long as it’s about historical and current prices. But if your local grocer walks over to their competitor and has a conversation about what the prices (or salaries) should be tomorrow, then that’s illegal in many jurisdictions. The same rules should apply if they use software.
I don't actually know what the letter of the law is in US, much less other countries and depending on public sector vs. private. But, yeah, there's a lot of information sharing both direct and (often) indirect on existing and past pricing on at least the aggregate level and sometimes at a more specific level.
As you say, the boundary is often about what pricing should be next year. But there's often a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink given good information about what prices and salaries are today.
> As you say, the boundary is often about what pricing should be next year. But there's often a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink given good information about what prices and salaries are today.
Sure. Just like a lot of people steal office supplies from their employers or trade small scale on insider information. But that doesn’t mean you could or should build a website to enable that on an industrial scale. Same applies here IMHO.