Amazon patent must stop price comparisons via store’s Wi-Fi

Amazon recently received approval for a patent that describes a method to prevent price comparisons over the Wi-Fi connection of brick-and-mortar stores. This way traffic can be blocked. On Friday it was announced that Amazon has acquired a retail chain.

The patent was already applied for in 2012, but only recently approved. It describes a system that checks the URLs visited by a customer in the store, so that it can be determined whether they belong to a competitor. It is also possible to determine a price difference between products on the visited site and those in the store. Then, for example, a counter offer can be made, according to the description.

The document, titled “Physical Store Online Shopping Control,” reports a “negative scenario” in which a brick-and-mortar store fails to sell because a customer has found a cheaper product online. The system could be used for ‘a large number of different evaluations’, for example based on the customer’s device information but also its location in the store. Possible actions that the retailer could take are blocking or redirecting internet traffic. Other options are sending a push notification or addressing the customer by an employee.

Amazon does not have any physical stores of its own, but announced Friday that it is acquiring the American organic supermarket chain Whole Foods for an amount of $13.7 billion. That is converted about 12.2 billion euros. It is the largest acquisition in the company’s history. Amazon has not yet disclosed what its plans are exactly; the Whole Foods brand will continue to exist, according to the internet giant. In the past, Amazon has shown a concept of its own store under the name Amazon Go. There, customers first have to check in with their smartphone and can leave the store immediately after shopping.