Through 1998 and 1999, various firms developed technology that searched retailers websites for prices and stored them in a central database. Users could then search for a product, and see a list of retailers and prices for that product. Advertisers did not pay to be listed, but paid for every click on a price. Streetprices, founded in 1997, has been a very early company in this space; it invented price graphs and email alerts in 1998.[2] These useful services let users see the high and low price of any product graphed over time, and request email alerts when a product's price drops to the price the user wants. Other price search engines have also evolved to provide consumers sophisticated price-tracking tools, such as price drop alerts and price history tracking.[3] From 2004 onwards, home utility comparison services started gaining popularity in the UK, with the launch of several utility comparison sites, who have now grown into multi-million turnover corporations, including Gocompare.com, Consumer Choices, Comparethemarket.com and USwitch.
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