RE: Confidentiality clause is back in at Nature

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

> Strongly disagree with Rick's premise. Using his examples
>
> 1. Automotive- Not relevant. It's not what you telling me what 
> you paid for the car. It's whether the dealer will tell you 
> what he sold the identical car for, to the last customer. Try 
> to get that number.

The context of this discussion is confidentiality clauses.  No 
automotive dealer (that I'm aware of, anyway) will ever make you 
sign a confidentiality agreement, forbidding you to discuss what 
you paid for the car he sold you.  I may not have much luck 
getting _him_ to tell me what you paid, but there's nothing to 
stop _you_ from telling me what you paid.

> 2 Bookselling. Not at all easy to know. Yes easy to get the 
> list price. But most publishers' discount schedules, to 
> libraries, to consumers, to consortia, for multi-copy sales, 
> vary all over the place.

Again, you're right that the prices vary.  But it's very easy to 
find out what any particular library's or consortium's discount 
structure is -- all you have to do is call up the librarian and 
ask.  (Unless they've agreed to a confidentiality clause.)

My response to each of your other examples is the same: in none 
of the industries or markets that I cited is it common for 
pricing to be kept contractually confidential.  In many of them, 
at least the list price for the product is easily and publicly 
available -- special deals may have taken place in particular 
instances, but they're rarely (if ever) protecting by vows of 
silence.

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