The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an investigation into several prominent companies regarding their utilization of customer data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence to set personalized pricing strategies.
Among the companies under scrutiny are Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, Task Software, McKinsey & Co., Revionics, Bloomreach, and Pros, which received information requests from the FTC this week. The regulatory agency aims to understand how these pricing methods affect privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
These firms employ strategies commonly referred to as “surveillance pricing” or “dynamic pricing,” which enable them to present varying prices for identical products depending on factors such as location, demographics, credit history, and past shopping behavior.
Many of the investigated companies play critical roles in providing pricing and transaction services to major firms across the United States and worldwide. For instance, Task Software supports several leading hospitality brands including McDonald’s and Starbucks, while Revionics offers pricing analytics to retail giants such as Home Depot. Pros, promoted as a provider of AI-driven pricing solutions, serves notable clients like Nestlé, HP, and United Airlines, and collaborates with Microsoft in technology development.
The FTC’s inquiry aims to explore what it describes as an “opaque market” that segments customers and defines targeted pricing for goods and services. FTC Chair Lina Khan expressed concerns, stating, “Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk. 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, and the FTC’s inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”
The commission is focusing on four main areas: the types of surveillance pricing products and services offered by each company, data collection methods, customer and sales data, and the influence of these practices on final consumer pricing.