NEW BOOK: Gouged Blows Open the High-Tech Corporate Pricing Playbook Draining Americans’ Wallets
Groundwork CEO Lindsay Owens’ new exposé pulls back the curtain on corporate America’s pricing practices, drawing early response from the C-Suite
On shelves today and already climbing bestseller lists, Groundwork Collaborative President and CEO Lindsay Owens’ debut book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—And What That Means for Your Wallet, exposes the high-tech tricks and tactics corporations are using to overcharge consumers.
Gouged takes readers inside the corporate boardrooms and backrooms where pricing decisions are made and exposes the mechanics behind practices that are growing ubiquitous across the economy: dynamic and algorithmic pricing, surveillance-based price discrimination, hidden fees, and dark patterns — the manipulative design tricks that steer consumers into paying more than they intended or signing up for subscriptions they never wanted. Owens traces how these tools are being weaponized against shoppers paying for groceries, housing, travel expenses, insurance premiums, and more — and what consumers can do to fight back. Gouged also proposes a Shoppers’ Bill of Rights: a policy roadmap for lawmakers looking to crack down on manipulative pricing tactics.
Owens is a leading expert on corporate power, consumer protection, and the driving forces behind the rising cost of living. Under Owens’ leadership, Groundwork has spearheaded investigations exposing how new corporate pricing schemes and technologies manipulate consumers into paying more. Owens’ research and commentary has driven national headlines, spurred FTC probes, and forced public responses and changes to pricing practices from major companies like Google, Delta, and Instacart.
Named one of Washington’s Most Influential People, Owens recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, laying out how mega-corporations like Walmart are harnessing troves of consumer data and AI shopping agents to trick shoppers into paying more at checkout. Owens then dug deeper into Walmart’s surveillance pricing and high-tech ‘smart cart’ patents in a now-viral exchange on Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show podcast. In response, just days before the publication of Gouged, Walmart CEO John Furner issued an open letter to shoppers claiming the company would not utilize the surveillance pricing technologies it has built and patented.
About the release of her book, Owens said:
“After years of digging into the history of corporate pricing, poring over the transcripts of corporate earnings calls, cataloging investor disclosures, and parsing patent filings, I came to an undeniable conclusion: We aren’t imagining it. Corporations reinvented the ripoff right under our noses, and we’re all paying the price.
Gouged will undoubtedly make you angry. But in pulling back the curtain on the most deceptive tricks companies deploy to empty our wallets, it also offers a roadmap for how we can fight back. Throughout history, consumers have banded together, raised their voices, and demanded a fair price. Gouged arms shoppers with the knowledge they need to end these high-tech ripoffs, clearing a path to restore a fair price before we lose it for good.”
Gouged is available today online and in bookstores everywhere. Owens will soon launch the Gouged book tour with talks and presentations in the following cities (with more dates coming soon):
Aspen Ideas: Economy, October 13, Tulsa, OK
Southern Festival of Books (in conversation with Jamie McGee), October 17, Nashville, TN
Politics & Prose (in conversation with Greg Rosalsky), October 23, Washington, DC
St. Louis Library Politics & History Series, October 27, St. Louis, MO
Hudson Library & Historical Society, October 28, Hudson, OH
More from Lindsay:
- On Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show: “In the book, I’m really focused on the ways in which new technologies have allowed tech companies to supercharge these age-old impulses and reinvent the ripoff. And these days, you can get price fixing across industries and sectors where coordination would be impossible but for the players using a common algorithm.”
- In the Daily Mail: “When you next log on to your favorite grocery app to order food for the week, you’ll probably assume the price you see on screen is the same price other shoppers will pay for their haul. You’d be wrong. Because, while you browse bunches of bananas and jars of peanut butter, an algorithm is probably hard at work running code, tracking every scroll and click, figuring out how high it can set your price tag before you change your mind and walk away.”
- In the Boston Globe: “The old pricing rule book, where companies charged what it cost to make something, plus a reasonable margin, is gone. In its place is a new credo: The best price is the one you personally are willing to pay.”
- In the New York Daily News: “Companies have turned efforts to sign up – and maddening cancellations – into a booming business, one supercharged by the pandemic, when millions of customers shifted their shopping online. Rules like New York City’s – and ideally, a future federal standard like that of the now-struck-down FTC rule – can help to rebalance the scales, giving consumers back some of the power companies have leveraged technology to take away.”
- In The Guardian: “I think American shoppers are exhausted. High prices make shopping pretty treacherous. Adding insult to injury is the increasingly opaque manipulative and volatile way that corporate America does pricing. This reinvention of the rip-off that we’re all living through has undermined trust in one of the major ways we participate in the economy.”
- In KERA: “Companies don’t necessarily need a natural disaster or a crisis to create the conditions for extraction and exploitation. Thanks to new technologies, there are a lot of ways to gouge you, nickel-and-dime you, and squeeze you, rain or shine, 24/7.”
Praise for Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—And What That Means for Your Wallet
- “Lindsay Owens has written a thrilling true crime story about how the largest corporate monopolies in America have hatched a scheme to pick our pockets. Gouged is the book corporate America does not want you to read.” – Robert B. Reich, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor
- “Gouged is a must-read for anyone wondering how everything got so damn expensive and who is profiting off your misery…If you’re sick and tired of being squeezed by giant corporations and just want life to be a little easier and much more affordable, this book is for you.” – Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator
- “Gouged uncovers a hidden cause of the affordability crisis: algorithms that set prices, which often means tailoring the price for individuals and fixing the price across markets…Owens’s book reveals the new ways that big tech is allowing big corporations to rig the game, and what we can do to fight back.” – Heather McGhee, Author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
- “Ever have the sneaking suspicion that you’re paying more for something online than you should be, or than your neighbor is? You probably are. And you should be outraged. Lindsay Owens tells us how we got here and what we should do about it. Required reading for all American consumers and policymakers.” – Rana Foroohar, Author of Homecoming to Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
- “[Gouged] is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of corporate power.” – Jonathan Kanter, Former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the United States
- “Owens, CEO of the Groundwork Collaborative, a leading economic think tank, is determined to arm consumers with information to fight corporate greed . . . [Gouged] is relatable to all readers frustrated with sneaky billing, and they will find it insightful and useful in their daily lives.” – Booklist (starred review)
