Price Comparison Sites: Is it Time For a Code of Conduct?

[engine]

Price comparison sites risk misleading consumers and should be governed by a code of practice, an independent body said on Thursday.

The Resolution Foundation, an independent research and policy organisation, said Web sites that compare financial products should sign up to a voluntary code of conduct on accuracy and impartiality.

It would aim to ensure that such services display up-to-date information, disclose how much of the market they cover and are transparent in the commercial relationships they have with product providers.

Price Comparison Sites: Is it Time For a Code of Conduct? [uk.reuters.com]

[jsinger]

yes, and I think penny stock spammers should sign a Code of Conduct too.

About the only financial products I see advertised on the web are scams, and some already say they're endorsed by "CNN, NBC and Even Oprah."

That's good enough for me.

[engine]

>yes, and I think penny stock spammers should sign a Code of Conduct too.

There's no comparison (excuse the non-intended pun) between penny stock and price comparison sites.

Any serious and genuine price comparison site would want to add to its credibility, even if it's not this proposal.

[bwnbwn]

engine
Your hit on a topic I have long been wanting to see and comment on. Making a living from ecommerce is a tough business and it got tougher when the search engines started favoring the price comparision sites over real ecommerce sites.

Why this has happened is beyond me but most any searched item dealing with a product brings up a page full of these sites. As your post indicaes I see I am not the only one seeing mispriced, misleading ads or items to generate a click through. This in itself should ban them by human review.

The general population will one day get sick of the wasted time clicking on these sites and begin to completely ignore them till finally they are not worth a search engines page space and are banned or filtered....Until that time it will only get worse as the cost of doing business on the internet continues to rise...

[vincevincevince]

I really do think this is a good idea, but it should be enforced at some level; perhaps by being denied search engine listings by the big three if they don't sign up.

I'd want the following:

All prices to include shipping to my home (geolocated or chosen by me)

Those with no shipping info not to be listed or to be listed last

Prices and stock must be verified daily

Paid, commission yielding or otherwise compensated listings must be clearly marked and differentiated from standard listings just as in search engine results

There must be a route for appropriate E-commerce stores to add their own listings at no cost

Merchant contact mechanisms must be provided so that customers can contact the merchant about the product before purchase

No reviews or comments are to be removed without legal requirement to do so unless it is part of an unbiased sitewide removal policy based on age or as a response to spamming

Where merchants or third parties get legal authority to demand removal of a review; this must remain stated there as 'Review removed due to court order obtained by Widget Corp' with a link to any relevant documents so that buyers have a chance to be aware of censoring or 'reputation management' which might be going on

[jsinger]

Web sites that compare financial products should sign up to a voluntary code

This is really about PRODUCT comparison sites, not about FINANCIAL products such as investments. Still I think it will instill a false sense of trust that will be abused.

Seals and Codes of Conduct help the unscrupulous which is why so many sleaze firms advertise they are members of the BBB. Pfishing emails are now covered with logos and other devices to defuse healthy distrust.

--
Penny stock scams exist because so many people think that securities MUST be approved by the SEC, which isn't true. (many aren't even audited)

[Habtom]

It is interesting your brought up this topic engine. I have a project which has been in the pipeline for quite a while now, and one thing that has been a challenge to us was how to provide a balanced information with the customer in mind, and yet make money. I dare say it is not easy in this business, unlike many other businesses out there.

[simey]

ensure that such services display up-to-date information

I've never found a price comparison site worth a damn. When I've tried them I only get links that lead to nowhere, bad/out of date prices, odd merchants I've never heard of, etc. Just using google or yahoo leads to better results for me...