The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an investigation into several prominent companies regarding their use of customer data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence to set personalized pricing strategies.
A recent Coinbase poll indicates that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are closely vying for support among cryptocurrency voters.
The FTC has issued orders to eight firms, including Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, Task Software, McKinsey & Co., Revionics, Bloomreach, and Pros, seeking insights into how these pricing strategies affect privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
These companies are engaged in what is known as “surveillance pricing,” or “dynamic pricing,” a method that allows them to present varying prices for the same products based on individual consumer traits such as location, demographics, credit history, and online behavior.
Notably, many companies investigated by the FTC supply transaction, sales, and pricing solutions to leading firms both in the U.S. and around the globe. Task Software is the transaction management provider for major hospitality brands like McDonald’s and Starbucks. Revionics offers retail price optimization tools and pricing analytics to various international chains, including Home Depot. Pros touts itself as a provider of AI-driven pricing solutions and serves clients like Nestlé, HP, and United Airlines; it is also connected to Microsoft as a technology development partner.
The FTC aims to clarify the operations within this “opaque market” that uses consumer profiling to determine targeted pricing for goods and services.
“Companies that collect personal data from Americans can jeopardize individual privacy. It appears that these firms may be misusing this extensive data to impose higher prices,” said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a statement. “Consumers deserve transparency regarding whether their data is being utilized for surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s investigation will illuminate this obscure network of pricing intermediaries.”
The FTC is specifically seeking information on four main aspects: the types of surveillance pricing products each company provides, the methods used for data collection, details about customer and sales data, and the influence of these surveillance strategies on consumer pricing.