"[They can] charge you ... more for something you really want, and maybe charge you less for something you're on the fence about as a way to persuade you to make that purchase," Hirsh says.

A CBC poll suggests48 per cent of Canadians shop online at least monthly, and 51 per cent of us have booked a hotel room online in the past year.Marketplaceput hotels to the test for price discrimination. Three different types of shoppers searched the same destinations and dates at the same time and saw that some hotels were priced differently from browser to private browser or their phone.Price differences were seen on several popular websites including Hotels.com, Travelocity and Priceline.In a search on Hotels.com of New York City on New Year's Eve, the Belvedere was listed at $734 (all prices are in Canadian currency) on a regular browser. But on an incognito browser one that does not show your computer's cookies the price was cheaper at $712. We did the same search on a mobile phone and saw the cheaper price, $712, there too.

The Westin Playa Bonita hotel in Panama City, Panama, was listed on Travelocity.ca at $200 using a regular browser, but only $181 on an 'incognito' browser that hides the user's cookies. The search was done for the same dates in both. (CBC)

On the other hand, in a search on Priceline for a room in Orlando, Fla., the Radisson was more than $70 cheaper on the regular browser ($124) than the incognito browser ($198). In a statement to CBC, Priceline said it does not raise prices based on a shopper's past online browsing, but it sometimes lowers them to offer a deal. Hirsh likens online price discrimination to a virtual equivalent of haggling. Only in this case, we do not have the opportunity to negotiate back."I think that [negotiating] would be possible if we knew their logic,"he says. "If we knew if gender or age or geography made a difference, like maybe my niece in Montreal should be booking my travel instead of me doing it from downtown Toronto."

We do know your perceived nationality can make a difference on Expedia-owned companies like Travelocity and Hotels.com. We talked to Expedia Inc., and they acknowledge that they offer different types of travelers certain discounts.

Suppose you are a head of marketing at the Westin Playa Bonita hotel. Foreachof the categories listed below, listfouritems for that category

1. Product items:
2. Product line:
3. Product mix: