Black Friday
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, is historically one of the busiest retail shopping days of the year. Many consider it the "official" beginning to the holiday season. Most retailers will open very early and usually provide massive discounts on their products.
The use of the word "black" relates to business accountants traditionally recording losses in red ink and profits in black ink.
Anti-capitalist protestors have chosen this day as Buy Nothing Day in North America (though this day is not especially important in Canada's commercial year, where those concerned about the increasing power and influence of consumer corporations are urged to not make consumer purchases.
Employees of retail stores have for years referred to Black Friday in a satirical way, to note the extremely stressful and hectic nature of the day. Heavy traffic and customer demands added to the long hours make it a difficult day.
In recent years, some retailers (including Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Staples) have claimed that the advertisements they send in advance of Black Friday and the prices included in those advertisement are intellectual property and protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Using the take down provision of the DMCA, these retailers have threatened various internet web sites who post Black Friday prices to the internet in advance of the intended release date by the retailers. This policy apparently derives from a fear that competitors, in addition to customers, will also have access to this information and use it for competitive advantage. The actual validity of the claim that prices are protected intellectual property is uncertain as prices might be considered a 'fact' in which case they would not receive the same level of protection as pure intellectual property.
The benefit of threatening internet sites with a DMCA based lawsuit has proved tenuous at best. While some sites have complied with the requests, others have either ignored the threats or simply continuted to post the information under the name of a similar sounding fictional retailer.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
Video: 2006 Black Friday At Wal-Mart
English
Română