Statement From Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on DoorDash’s $17 Billion Acquisition of Instacart

Statement From Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on DoorDash’s $17 Billion Acquisition of Instacart

Move follows FTC’s demand that DoorDash, Instacart, seven other companies provide information on their use of personal data to set prices and compensation

In response to the news that DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart for $17 billion, Lindsay Owens – President and CEO of the economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative and author of new book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price—and What That Means for Your Wallet – released the following statement.

“A grocery company that made its fortune running experiments on shoppers to determine how much they can overcharge them is now merging with a delivery company that built tech to track its customers’ every click and scroll to charge them as much as it can. The goal of the merger is obvious: DoorDash is openly touting that the deal will combine the AI tools that each company has built.

The FTC knows these two companies are at the forefront of unfair and deceptive pricing technology, which is why it ordered them to open up their pricing labs just yesterday. Two of the biggest ripoff machines in America should not be allowed to become one. The FTC must block this merger.”

Groundwork and Owens have been leading the charge against corporations’ harmful adoption of surveillance pricing and AI pricing tools, putting a spotlight on how they are reinventing the ripoff – and forcing some to run damage control or even end their deceptive pricing outright:

• An investigation by Groundwork Collaborative, Consumer Reports, and More Perfect Union into Instacart’s pricing experiments found that many U.S. shoppers who order grocery pickup and delivery through Instacart are unknowingly enrolled in AI-enabled experiments that can charge up to 23% more for the same item ordered from the same store at the same time, which could cost a household of four about $1,200 per year. After facing public backlash and a probe from the FTC, Instacart shut down its pricing lab.
• Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, Owens called out Target, DoorDash, Walmart, Uber, JetBlue, and Instacart for their use of surveillance pricing and other deceptive tactics that are used to cheat consumers out of their hard-earned money.
• Just yesterday, the FTC announced an investigation into nine companies on the forefront of surveillance pricing, including both DoorDash and Instacart. The FTC’s inquiry comes after Congress put bipartisan pressure on the FTC to investigate surveillance pricing – including in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing that Owens participated in.