A textbook price-comparison tool has been making a lot
of news, particularly after reports surfaced the tech start-up that developed the Chrome plug-in was threatened
with a lawsuit by a campus retailing company. Texts.com only had about 200
downloads for its add-on software before news of the lawsuit went viral, which
swelled to 15,000 downloads within days of the report.
The Chrome plug-in is an opt-in feature students can
install that will show prices from third-party vendors such as Amazon, Valore,
and Chegg. It interacts with the end-user’s browser and works with bookstore
websites maintained by Barnes & Noble College, Follett Higher Education
Group, and Nebraska Book Co., according to The Wall Street Journal.
WSJ also confirmed that Follett sent an email to Texts.com
expressing concern that the extension was changing “the presentation of
information on the screen.” The start-up rebuilt the extension and rebranded it
as #OccupyTheBookstore.