Text/ Nine Talents
Production/Node Finance
Recently, actor Ma Tianyu posted a message on social platforms to shout about Ctrip, pointing out that he was suspected of using big data to “kill familiarity”, which aroused the attention of the outside world. Ma Tianyu has deleted the relevant content, but the discussion about Ctrip has not subsided.
Once upon a time, mass users also suffered from the “killing” of some software. For example, the price of frequently used items is much more expensive than that of less commonly used items. If you browse an item too many times, the platform may secretly increase the price. This behavior is very disgusting for consumers.
For Ctrip, in 2019, it was exposed by users that it used big data to kill familiarity, and as a result, it was also brought to court by consumers.
According to relevant media reports, in this case, Ms. Hu, an old Ctrip user, booked a deluxe lake view king-size room at the Hilton Zhoushan on the Ctrip APP at a price of 2,889 yuan. Before that, Ms. Hu had made more than 30 reservations through Ctrip, spending more than 100,000 yuan, with an average of nearly 4,000 yuan per order. After this stay, when Ms. Hu checked out, she found that the hotel staff only issued an invoice according to 1377.63 yuan.
Afterwards, Ms. Hu took Ctrip to court, arguing that Ctrip had an infringement of “big data killing”.
In this regard, Ctrip argued that hoarding and increasing the price belonged to the “self-pricing operation behavior” of the agent, and that it had no responsibility or fault.
In fact, although big data “killing” has been criticized, there are also many points that are debatable, and it is difficult to have a “real hammer”.
Among them, the hotels and air tickets involved in Ctrip are products with large price fluctuations. There are full-price tickets and discounted tickets for air tickets, and hotels and platforms will also agree to provide special rooms. The pricing of such products is affected by many factors, so sometimes there are obvious price differences.
Therefore, it is difficult to make an accurate judgment on Ctrip being “killed” this time.
For consumers, it is best to “shop around” when shopping online, and check the prices on the hotel’s official website and different OTA platforms in time. In your mind, what kind of app is Ctrip? Comments are welcome.
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