Your location or how you shop online might cause the price to go up.

Customers are seeing different prices for the same things and services based on the information they have about them, like their precise location or browsing history.

The method is known as surveillance pricing, and the Federal Trade Commission has recently released preliminary findings of a report examining the matter. In July 2024, the FTC asked eight companies that sell products and services that monitor prices and collect information about how people behave.

The goal was to understand how third-party companies set prices for products and services based on what people like, where they live, how they shop, and what they've bought before. This is called the "shadowy market."

Upon speaking with the personnel of these organizations, the Federal Trade Commission discovered that various behaviours, including mouse movements on a website and the types of products that consumers live in an online shopping cart without clicking Buy, can be monitored and utilized by retailers to tailor consumer pricing.

The companies said they used complicated computer programs and personal information about customers to figure out prices.

FTC chair Lina M. Khan said:

 “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.”

The priorities to investigate are:

• Products and services used in surveillance pricing.
• Who collected the data sources, and who collected them?
• What are the potential customers?
• What effect surveillance pricing had on the prices these customers paid.

This is not new. Insurance companies care about our lifestyle and will charge more or refuse to cover us if they think we are too risky.

It's true that surveillance pricing can have serious repercussions, not just for our privacy, but also for fair competition and consumer protection.

The type of information that could be involved is the most shocking thing. The FTC says that some of these companies even made lists of people with diseases to target them with offers for ineffective or worthless products. This makes the introduction of a bill mandating that data brokers cease trading health and location data entirely comprehensible.

We've all heard someone say, "What's the big deal when I don't have anything to hide?"

They might end up paying more for their private info if they post it online. It is a no-brainer that we should share as little as possible. Here’s how:

• Limit what you share on social media as much as possible, and try to keep personal data out of photos and written posts
• Only tell companies the information that they need for the service or product they’re providing. Use false information as much as possible
• If you are asked to share your location data with an app and there’s no clear reason why you might need to, deny the app that permission
• If you have to share your location—for example, when using a map app—choose the “Allow only while using the app” option so that it will be unable to continuously track your location and movement
• Read privacy policies, however boring they are. Understand how the company will be using your data
• Block web tracking wherever you can. Extensions like Malwarebytes Browser Guard automatically declines the cookie consent banners you see on websites, opting you out of data collection performed by tracking cookies (and it’s free).