Are You Overpaying? FTC Exposes Shocking Truth About Surveillance Pricing

The FTC is raising the curtain on a new phenomenon called surveillance pricing that makes use of personal data to show people different prices for the same products.

The data in question could be browser history, location, and simple clicks of a PC mouse too. Companies collect that information and are now using it to their advantage. Retailers end up hiring companies to switch the prices up by adding changes to the algorithm.

Instead of keeping prices all the same, they make sure the same product comes at different prices depending on the input such as consumer data and preferences. For instance, the FTC claims that profiling consumers gives them that data. If any discount is to be offered, it would again be different for all, depending on that data.

Such intermediary companies work with over 250 different clients involved in product sales and customer service. This could be a clothing designer or your local grocery store, the FTC adds. Hence, widespread adoption of such practices could upend how a client purchases the goods and how the firm is competing in the industry.

The news comes after the FTC shared in the previous year several different middlemen firms that put together computer algorithms and personal data to make tweaks to pricing. Amongst those include Bloomreach, PROS, Mastercard, Task Software, and JPMorgan Chase.

Now, the FTC is working to investigate the surveillance pricing bids as every consumer holds the right in America to know how and where their data is being used. This is why the FTC shared a public request for any comments regarding user experiences linked to surveillance pricing.

The head of the FTC says that such unfair advantages will no longer be tolerated. However, such practices are not new to the industry. We’ve seen VPNs come into play where users can alter location to low-income nations to get cheaper pricing for goods like airline tickets. Another paper published in Yale speaks about surveillance pricing actually doing the opposite and keeping prices on the lower end of the extreme but again can give rise to unfair pricing when bigger firms monopolize large data.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Trump’s Executive Order Delays TikTok’s Ban, Fueling Debate on Free Expression
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World