The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an investigation into several major companies regarding their use of customer data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence for personalized pricing strategies.
Eight companies across various sectors—including Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, Task Software, McKinsey & Co., Revionics, Bloomreach, and Pros—have received requests from the FTC for information on how these practices might affect privacy, competition, and consumer protection.
The practice under scrutiny is known as “surveillance pricing” or “dynamic pricing,” where companies utilize data tools like AI to present different prices for the same products based on factors such as customer location, demographics, credit history, and online shopping behavior.
Many of the firms involved provide transaction, sales, and pricing services to major corporations in the U.S. and around the world. For instance, Task Software manages transactions for several large hospitality brands, including McDonald’s and Starbucks. Revionics specializes in retail price optimization software and analytics for global chains like Home Depot, while Pros offers AI-powered pricing solutions and counts Nestlé, HP, and United Airlines among its clients. Pros is also a technology partner of Microsoft.
The FTC aims to uncover the complexities of this “opaque market” that segments consumers and assigns targeted pricing to products and services.
“Companies that access Americans’ personal data risk compromising their privacy. They may also be taking advantage of this extensive personal information to impose higher prices,” stated FTC Chair Lina Khan. “Americans deserve transparency about whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to implement surveillance pricing. The FTC’s inquiry will help illuminate this obscure network of pricing intermediaries.”
The FTC is specifically seeking information on four main topics: the types of surveillance pricing products and services offered by each company; their data collection methods; customer and sales data; and the impact of these practices on the prices customers pay.