Surveillance pricing uses personal, inferred, or behavioral information to influence the price, discount, or product display a consumer sees. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is examining how pricing intermediaries can enable such practices—but its public materials do not prove that a named retailer charged a particular shopper a personalized price.
What surveillance pricing means
A seller or its service provider may use information about a person or audience—such as location, demographics, browsing patterns, or shopping activity—to shape an offer. That could mean changing a price, choosing who sees a discount, or presenting different products to different people. The FTC describes these as potential uses of consumer data, not a single, established formula used by every retailer.
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The term does not describe every price change. Prices can vary by time, sales channel, demand, or market conditions without being based on an individual shopper’s data. Those factors can also overlap: a seller might take both timing and consumer information into account. To assess a reported difference, ask whether the item, location, channel, and time were comparable; what data might have influenced the offer; whether it was individualized or offered to a broader segment; and how clearly the seller explained it.
What the FTC has documented—and what it has not
The inquiry began with pricing intermediaries
On July 23, 2024, the FTC used its 6(b) authority to seek information from eight firms: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co. The study was intended to examine the firms’ products and services, data inputs, customers, and possible effects on consumer prices, privacy, and competition. The FTC’s announcement quoted then-Chair Lina M. Khan: “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.”
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January 2025 staff materials described capabilities
In January 2025, FTC staff published initial research summaries drawing on documents from six respondents. The staff perspective described potential inputs including location, demographics, browsing and shopping activity, and consumer behavior. It also discussed uses such as tailoring discounts or product displays. Staff said the examined intermediaries worked with at least 250 clients in sectors including grocery and apparel. That figure counts intermediary clients; it does not mean 250 retailers were proven to use individualized pricing.
The examples in the public staff materials were hypothetical. Respondent information had to be aggregated or anonymized to protect confidential information, and staff characterized the study as ongoing. The summaries therefore do not establish that any named store used the practice, charged a particular customer more, or produced a specific price effect. Read the FTC Office of Technology’s January 2025 staff perspective.
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The issue spotlight describes risks, not a final finding
A separate FTC Office of Technology issue spotlight surveyed publicly available information and discussed potential risks when prices are opaque or consumers have difficulty comparing sellers. It was not a report of findings from the non-public study materials, and it does not amount to a legal determination that surveillance pricing as a category is unlawful. The FTC’s issue spotlight identifies transparency, privacy, comparison, and competition as areas of concern.
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- Transparency: If the same product appears at different prices or with different discounts, a shopper may not know whether the cause is timing, channel, a broad promotion, or personal data.
- Privacy: Using browsing, shopping, location, or inferred information to shape offers can raise questions about what data is collected and how it is used.
- Comparison: Opaque or individualized offers can make it harder to tell whether another seller has a better price, particularly if shoppers cannot readily see the terms others receive.
- Competition: The FTC has identified possible effects on competition as a subject for scrutiny; the cited materials do not quantify those effects.
How to think about a price or discount that changes
The FTC’s January 2025 public comment request asked consumers: “Have you seen a product be ‘discounted’ or ‘on sale’ one week, but cost the same price another week without the discount or sale?” That is a useful observation to report, but a changing promotion by itself does not show that a seller used personal data to set an individual price. The public comment request closed April 17, 2025.
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If comparing offers, keep track of the product and its relevant terms, when and where each price appeared, and whether the comparison was across locations or sales channels. A price difference may have several explanations; available FTC materials do not provide a consumer test that can identify the seller’s method from the price alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What remains unknown
The cited FTC materials do not provide a population-wide estimate of how many U.S. retailers currently use individualized surveillance pricing or how much consumers pay because of it. They also do not establish retailer-by-retailer adoption or a proven countermeasure. The inquiry’s status after the January 2025 staff materials is not established here, so those materials should not be treated as a current update on whether the FTC has since issued further findings or taken action.
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The FTC’s resource page explains the agency’s public description of surveillance pricing and related materials: Surveillance Pricing.
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