After being awarded patent.

Amazon has recently been awarded a patent that will prevent its customers from being able to use their smartphone to compare product prices when shopping in-store. The system will be able to identify when a customer is trying to access a competitor’s website and interfere the attempt by redirecting them to Amazon’s own site or alert Amazon salespeople to approach the shopper.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has outlined the patent, titled ‘Physical Store Online Shopping Control’, with the following abstract:

“Systems and methods for controlling online shopping within a physical store or retailer location are provided. A wireless network connection may be provided to a consumer device at a retailer location on behalf of a retailer, and content requested by the consumer device via the wireless network connection may be identified.

“Based upon an evaluation of the identified content, a determination may be made that the consumer device is attempting to access information associated with a competitor of the retailer or an item offered for sale by the retailer. At least one control action may then be directed based upon the determination.”