Washington – by increasing the price of diapers for parents who recently wanted them online, to stores excluding regular discount customers, as they are likely to buy the product anyway, companies use personal data to set different prices for different people.
The practice, known as “surveillance price”, attracted the attention of the Greg Casar representative, D-Texas, who wants to prohibit it at the federal level.
The collection of personal data has become commonplace in the Internet era, large companies, agricultural information to adapt marketing and sales arguments specifically to individual consumers. But companies now use location data, travel history and demographic history to individualize prices.
Casar thinks that this practice, which is often done using artificial intelligence, could stack the bridge against consumers, which causes higher and unequal prices. The legislator, which directs the progressive Caucus congressal, told NBC News that he wanted to ensure that prices are set “according to supply and demand and according to the quantity of manufacturing costs and sell one thing, not on the espionage and use of your private data”.
THE Stop ai price gouging and salge fixing act of 2025That Casar will introduce Wednesday, prohibit the use of prices and wages based on surveillance. The bill intervenes in the heels of a study by the Federal Trade Commission and that certain states also seek to prohibit surveillance prices.
Casar said there should be more transparency regarding the use of consumer data and artificial intelligence. His bill would also prevent the use of AI to define wages according to personal data, such as the financial history of an individual, rather than on performance.
“AI is a part of our lives, part of our world, but we must make sure that it is used for good and not being exploited,” he said. “We are already starting to see this, and if we do not intervene now and prohibit this kind of price and deletion of wages at the moment, I think it will simply spread everywhere in the economy.”
Casar legislation comes after the FTC released the Initial results of his study on surveillance prices in January. This report, published just before President Joe Bider leaves the office, noted that “the precise location or the history of the browser of a person can be frequently used to target individual consumers with different prices for the same goods and services”.
The results of the FTC are based on the information requested from eight companies that use consumer data during product pricing: MasterCards, Revionics, Bloomreach, Jpmorgan Chase, Task Software, Pros, Accenture and McKinsey & Co.
Lina Khan, who chaired the FTC under Biden, supervised the study. We do not know what the future of the FTC will be on this issue under the Trump administration, because the agency’s call to the public contribution on supervisory prices was arrested when the new management arrived.
“One of the most pernicious aspects of surveillance pricing is that people may have absolutely no idea that they are targeted by it,” Khan said in an interview with NBC News. “It’s a total black box.”
Khan said that technology is evolving quickly, which allows companies to predict more easily how much a consumer is able or willing to pay without them knowing. Khan described surveillance prices as the “Saint Grail” for companies that seek to maximize the benefits of electronic commerce.
“We quickly slipped into an environment where companies are now increasingly the ability to do so according to the enormous treasures of personal data that are collected to us, they have the incentive to do so,” said Khan, adding that “unless the law forces and legislators are very clear about these prohibited practices, companies will think that it is a completely fair game”.
Casar noted that Delta Air Lines is a company that integrated AI into its prices. On one call to the investor This month, Delta President Glen Hauenstein said that the airline’s objective was to have a fifth of all of its prices set by an artificial intelligence program, against 3% currently. But the company challenged in a press release according to which prices would be set according to personal information.
“There is no product the product that Delta has never used, is a test or plans to use that targets customers with individual offers based on personal or otherwise information,” said the company. “Delta is always in accordance with prices and disclosure regulations.”
Although Casar’s legislation is the first at the national level, several legislatures of the States tried to take the question. For example, the New York Legislative Assembly adopted and the governor signed legislation To require companies to disclose consumers when a price is set by an algorithm using their data.
Earlier this month, the National Retail Federation asked for a federal court To block New York’s law, saying that it “would unjustly unwind a system that helps traders give customers prices and personalized offers”.
The assembly of California, meanwhile, adopted a bill In May, to prevent companies from using personal data when invoicing different prices for the same product. This legislation is now going to the Senate of California.
At the federal level, the House of Representatives leaves for its August recess this week, so no measure can be taken on Casar’s bill until September at the earliest. The Congress member said that he hoped “to build a large coalition of members of the congress against this, because I think it is the kind of problem that energizes people across the country”.
Casar considers a ban on surveillance prices as a problem that could attract bipartisan support. “I think it is the kind of thing that pisses off democratic and republican and independent voters,” he said. “You do not need to be a progressive democrat to say that these gigantic societies in the world of technology should not spy on us and use what they learn to put it in AI and make our life more expensive.”
