Earlier this year, the FTC curtailed a study that sought to examine companies’ use of individualized data to set individualized prices
Last week, Senator Gallego introduced first-of-its-kind Senate legislation to outlaw surveillance pricing
WASHINGTON – Today, in the thick of the holiday shopping season, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) in pushing the Trump administration to crack down on surveillance pricing, or prices that are specially tailored to an individual consumer’s willingness to pay. As part of this letter, the senators highlight a 2024 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study that found companies used “a wide range of personal data to set individualized consumer prices.” That study was shut down by FTC chair Andrew Ferguson, who cancelled the public comment period, effectively ending the study in January.
The letter comes after, last week, Senator Gallego introduced the One Fair Price Actto ban companies from using consumers’ personal data to set individualized prices.
“As the FTC has documented, businesses are increasingly using personal data, such as demographic information, precise location, or even web browsing history, to target individual consumers with different prices for the same goods and services. Surveillance pricing builds upon not only the data that a company holds on a prospective customer, but also data purchased from shady data brokers,” wrote the Senators. “Recent concerns about surveillance pricing for airline tickets illustrate the dangers of this highly intrusive – and for consumers financially burdensome – practice. Fetcherr, an A.I. analytics company, suggested it was developing pricing algorithms for airlines that would target individuals with specific prices that consider ‘factors like customer lifetime value, past purchase behaviors, and the real-time context of each booking inquiry’ to drive up revenue.”
As part of this letter, the senators highlighted the Biden-era FTC study, which examined how companies tracked consumer behaviors – including a person’s precise location, browser history, and even mouse movements on a webpage – to inform their surveillance pricing tactics.
“The Commission had already begun a comprehensive market investigation into surveillance pricing under its Section 6(b) authority and issued a preliminary staff report on its findings. The 6(b) study explored the use cases and industries in which surveillance pricing is occurring and has helped reveal some of the details of this opaque business,” the Senators continued. “The FTC found within its requests at least 250 businesses including grocery stores, apparel retailers, health and beauty retailers, home goods and furnishing stores, convenience stores, and hardware stores had adopted surveillance pricing strategies. Consumers deserve a fair playing field, where they’re not at the mercy of amorphous data brokers capturing their data and using it to determine their maximum financial pain point for a good or service. We urge the Commission to publish its Section 6(b) study on surveillance pricing and then take rulemaking and enforcement actions to reign in this exploitative practice.”
Read the full letter HERE.
December 18, 2025