What is surveillance pricing? It’s when a company looks at information about you and sets the price of an item or service you want to buy based on that information.
The Federal Trade Commission issued orders to eight companies offering surveillance pricing products and services. The orders ask for information about the possible impacts these practices have on privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
The orders were sent to: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co.
“Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement. “Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices.”
Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, Khan said.
She called surveillance pricing a “shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”
The FTC study is focusing on the eight firms, which advertise their use of AI and v to target prices for individual consumers. The orders are seeking information on:
- Types of products and services being offered.
- Data collection and inputs.
- Customer and sales information.
- Impacts on consumers and prices.
It will be interesting to see what the FTC’s study finds. I certainly don’t like the idea that I’d be charged higher prices because of my income, where I live, my race, or some other reason.
I think I noticed this once on Amazon.
Shared on Facebook. Your information is valuable, thanks.
I hope Congress or the regulatory agencies will act on this. It’s so hard for consumers to figure this out themselves.
This is fascinating. I had no idea. But not surprised.
Another way corporations are price gouging consumers.