I’m sure y’all have seen this on some sites. Amazon does this for some of their TVs:

To see our low price, add this item to your cart. You can always remove it later.

I’ve noticed Crutchfield has started to do the same thing on their site and in their catalog. After I noticed it in their catalog I asked them to remove me from their lists, postal and email. I think Best Buy does it, too, on their web site. What is the deal here, exactly? How many hoops must one go through to get something as basic as a price?

I’ve heard that the manufacturers ask the retailers to do this. I haven’t been able to figure out why they would really want this, though — what it would actually get them. What I do know is that it got me uninterested in buying “protected” items from these retailers.</rant>