The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an inquiry into several prominent companies regarding their practices of using customer data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence to tailor pricing for individuals.
Eight firms from various sectors—including Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, Task Software, McKinsey & Co., Revionics, Bloomreach, and Pros—received requests for information from the FTC on Tuesday. The agency is examining how these pricing strategies affect privacy, competition, and consumer rights.
These companies utilize data tools, including AI, in a practice known as “surveillance pricing” or “dynamic pricing,” where different consumers are shown varying prices for the same products based on personal attributes such as location, demographics, credit history, and online behavior.
Many of the firms investigated provide transaction, sales, and pricing services to major corporations in the U.S. and abroad. Task Software manages transactions for significant hospitality brands like McDonald’s and Starbucks, while Revionics offers pricing optimization software to retailers like Home Depot. Pros, which claims to provide AI-driven pricing solutions, serves clients such as Nestlé, HP, and United Airlines and partners with Microsoft on technology development.
The FTC aims to clarify the practices in this “opaque market” where consumer profiling influences product pricing.
“Companies that collect Americans’ personal data pose risks to privacy,” stated FTC Chair Lina Khan. “Now, those firms might exploit this extensive data to impose higher prices. Americans need to know if companies are using detailed consumer data for surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s investigation will expose this hidden pricing ecosystem.”
The FTC’s inquiry will focus on four primary areas: the types of surveillance pricing products and services offered by each company, data collection methods, customer and sales information, and the impact of these practices on consumer pricing.