Statement From Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on FTC’s Personalized Pricing Inquiry

Statement From Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on FTC’s Personalized Pricing Inquiry

Today, Lindsay Owens – President and CEO of the economic think tank Groundwork Collaborative and author of the new book, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price–and What That Means for Your Wallet – released the following statement in reaction to the news that the FTC is ordering nine companies (Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart) to provide information on their use of personal data to set prices and compensation.

“American consumers should be able to book a flight, order a ride, or walk into their local grocery store and know that the price they see is the same price their neighbor sees. But corporations are increasingly deploying sophisticated technology to instead make sure the price you see is the most you, personally, are willing to pay.

The airlines, rideshare and delivery apps, and retailers the FTC has ordered to open their books are at the forefront of spying on shoppers and turning their data against them. Some of them have insisted to customers that they price products, not people. If that’s true, they should have no issue complying with the FTC’s order and giving American consumers a peek into their pricing black boxes.”

BACKGROUND

Groundwork and Owens have been leading the charge against corporations’ harmful adoption of surveillance pricing and AI pricing tools. Leading up to the FTC’s inquiry, Groundwork has investigated nearly all of the named companies, putting a spotlight on how they are reinventing the ripoff – and forcing some to run damage control or even end their deceptive pricing outright:

• Just last month, Owens prompted a public response from Walmart’s C-suite in response to her revelations about the company’s pricing practices. Groundwork went on to expose Walmart’s pricing playbook and its hidden arsenal of patents, privacy disclosures, and technology investments that reveal how the retailer is building the infrastructure that could allow it to deploy personalized pricing at scale.
• 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.
• 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.
• After Delta announced plans to deploy AI pricing tools across 20 percent of its domestic flights, Owens spoke out against the proposal, calling for the airline to reconsider and for lawmakers to “crack down on surveillance pricing now, before it’s too late.”

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.