Price Discrimination in the Digital Age

This chapter discusses the morality of online price discrimination. Price discrimination is a widespread type of market behaviour and it occurs, roughly, when a seller systematically charges different prices for the same product when it is offered to different groups of customers. Price discrimination occurs both online and offline, but some find the practice particularly suspicious when deployed in online markets. This asymmetry, we argue, calls for an explanation. In the chapter, we define price discrimination and review a number of explanations of why, and when, price discrimination is morally objectionable. We argue that online price discrimination will often prove more problematic than its offline counterpart, but also that neither practice is necessarily morally wrong.