RE: Confidentiality clause is back in at Nature

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> While I understand the desire for pricing transparency, I can't 
> think of an industry where it is practiced,

You can't?  Let me help; here are a few industries that pop 
immediately to mind.  In all five, prices are generally publicly 
posted, and while special deals may be offered to individual 
consumers, in none of these industries are clients generally 
enjoined to keep those deals a secret from others:

* The automotive industry (has anyone ever said to you "I'm not allowed
to tell you what I paid for my Toyota"?)
* Bookselling (how much does a book cost? Easy enough to find out.)
* Housing (how much did you neighbor's house sell for? Any realtor will
tell you if you ask.)
* Higher education
* Home computers

And, of course, pricing transparency is certainly practiced in 
the scholarly information industry -- widely, if not necessarily 
universally.  Publishers post their prices publicly all the time. 
My library never agrees to confidentiality clauses, nor do most 
of the colleagues with whom I've talked or corresponded on this 
issue.  If a database vendor wants to know what we're paying for 
a competitor's product, we're free (and, given public records 
laws, probably required) to tell.

> or understand the value to the buyer, since it often favors the 
> seller.

It seems to me that pricing transparency favors no one; on the 
contrary, it helps keeps things on an even keel and minimizes the 
likelihood of unfair advantage on either side.  When a seller 
says to me "I can give you this special deal, but only if you 
keep it secret," I always have to wonder how special the deal 
really is.  Is he offering me a price 50% lower than what he's 
offered a peer library?  Or is it really the same? Or is it 50% 
higher?  If the pricing is secret, then there's no way for me to 
know.  In that situation, the advantage is all on the seller's 
side.  On the other hand, if the price is publicly known, then I 
probably won't be able to wangle a special deal from the seller 
(who would run the risk of offending other customers if he gave 
me that deal) -- but I also run less risk of being taken in on 
the pretext of a "special secret deal just for you."  A price 
that's publicly known is, I think, more likely to be a price 
that's reasonable.  I'd rather be confident of a reasonable deal 
than run the risk of being fooled by a spurious "special deal."

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu