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FTC: Companies Are Using Your Data for Individualized 'Surveillance Pricing' (www.pcmag.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Your personal data, including your precise location, browser history, and even your mouse movements, is being used by some companies to show different prices for the same products—a phenomenon the FTC has dubbed "surveillance pricing."

According to a new FTC report, retailers are hiring "intermediary firms" to algorithmically tweak and target their prices.

"Instead of a price or promotion being a static feature of a product, the same product could have a different price or promotion based on a variety of inputs—including consumer-related data and their behaviors and preferences, the location, time, and channels by which a consumer buys the product," the FTC says.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

walmart rolled this out and call it "dynamic pricing" I have known for half a decade that a VPN can yield me discounts and you get different prices by region for the same product, like an ISP. For the most part it seems simply being unknown provides the desired outcome. I don't think any part of dynamic or surveillance pricing is designed to ever bring a price down over learning about someone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Including consumer related data.

This feels to me like "we know this user will typically spend the asking price rather than wait for a discount, so they will always get full price offers" or "according to cookies and other data this user also browses high end products elsewhere so we will offer inflated prices or higher 'shipping' costs and they will never question it"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I was thinking about the airport monitor that shows only your flight info because it can detect you and id you. And how many stores now have digital price tags on the shelves they can change remotely. Combine the 2 and you can have custom pricing per individual irl. 2 people standing next to each other in walmart be looking at the same thing and seeing different prices on the same display.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah i see. I have heard a similar angle of the same tactic for 'smart trolleys' where your shopping trolley/cart has a tablet device you scan your customer ID with and then scan items as you shop directly into your cart and when you leave you simply pick your bags out of the trolley and walk out with automatic debiting.
However who is to say what price you see on your screen vs the guy shopping next to you like you just said, tech will really be used for the worst purposes unless regulations are in place.