"There are 6 other people looking at this item right now."
This has been forbidden by the EU in the context of hotel rooms (booking.com)
And rightfully so.
This has been forbidden by the EU in the context of hotel rooms (booking.com)
And rightfully so.
Airlines release tickets for a flight in batches of 10, which is why you never see a "only x seats left" message where x is greater than 10. Once all 10 are sold, the next bucket of 10 are released at a new price depending on the demand of the previous 10. (I'm sure there's more to it than this, been a little while since I worked in the industry but that's the gist of it).
There's already existing regulations around purchasing flights (in the US). For instance on a flight results page after searching, you have to show the full price with fees, you can't just show the ticket price. I feel like it can't be that hard to regulate the "x seats left" messages too.
The most ridiculous consequence of that is that Ryan Air started charging for cabin luggage. So they show the "full price", but only in the end you realise that you have to pay extra to take a small suitcase with you (which is included on every other airline...).
I've worked for two hotel booking companies and as far as I remember, it is not outright banned. It is just that it requires to be truthful and specific. So for example, if you wouldn't be able to say that a room was recently sold out, but you could say that it was recently sold out on YOUR website. You just had to specify things.
This was some 2-3 years ago and it varied based on country the current hotel/user was in as well.
Clear cookies and refresh, guess what, its 6 people looking again and the time limit has reset.