Who's Minding The Store?

In the wee hours of the morning this morning, I was checking prices on the Internet, as I often do. I was looking around in Shopping.com and a particular item caught my eye. I noticed a Breyer Traditional model, Theodore O'Conner, for $14.25. I thought to myself, wow, that's cheap! I clicked on the item and was shown Amazon.com Marketplace $14.25, below that was Amazon.com Marketplace at $19.25 and below that was State Line Tack at $34.99. I clicked "visit store" on the $14.25 and it took me to Amazon.com Marketplace and listed the store as The Original Horse Tack Company. Interestingly enough, it showed the price as $28.90. What happened the $14.25? I then clicked visit store on the $19.25 and it took me to the same spot, again showing Teddy at $28.90. What happened to the $19.25. What's more, Shopping.com listed this store as a "Trusted Seller", and since it had the low price it was designated a "Smart Buy". I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust that store as far as I could throw it, and I guess it would get my personal rating as "Dumb Buy".
Here's the problem. All of these places, Amazon.com, Shopping.com, Nextag etc. are out selling advertising. Yes, that's right, Amazon.com is in the advertising business. I've purchased advertising from all of these places at one time or another, so trust me, I know what I'm talking about. It's a money driven system where depending on how much money you want to spend you can be a "Trusted Seller" or anything else you want to be. Unfortunately, what is being displayed as a "trusted" price is not really controlled by anybody. The ads that are displayed come from a data feed that the retailer provides. What if they submit inaccurate data, what if they're not all that "honest"? Well, the truth is nobody cares as long as they get paid. There is really no way to monitor all of this data for accuracy. So, who's minding the store? NOBODY!