When your desperation becomes part of the price

Prices once reflected the product and the market. Increasingly, they can also reflect what a company knows — or thinks it knows — about you.

Surveillance pricing uses personal data, behavioral tracking, and algorithms to estimate what a consumer may be willing to pay. If the system can infer that you are in a hurry, financially stressed, or unlikely to walk away, your vulnerability can become part of the calculation.

Companies watch us. We deserve tools to watch them back and make exploitation costly.

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The Federal Trade Commission began investigating this market in 2024, issuing orders to eight companies. Its initial findings showed that intermediaries serving at least 250 clients could use granular data to tailor prices, discounts, and product offers. The FTC cautioned that its published examples were “hypothetical.”

Surveillance pricing differs from ordinary dynamic pricing, in which prices move with inventory, time, or demand. Surveillance pricing is personal: the price, discount, financing term, or product placement can vary according to a consumer profile or group. The change may be subtle — a withheld discount, a costlier product ranked first, or a different financing offer.

The idea is older than the AI boom

In 2012, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Staples.com displayed different prices after estimating customers’ locations. Shoppers near an OfficeMax or Office Depot were more likely to receive discounts; those farther away could see higher prices for the same item.

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More recently, a 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found that Instacart’s AI-enabled pricing experiments offered different prices for identical groceries at the same stores and times. About three-quarters of tested products varied, with some differences reaching 23%. The investigation did not show that personal profiles determined who received which price, and Instacart later ended the program. But the experiment showed just how easy it was to target basic needs.

Your urgency can become valuable data

The troubling question is what happens when individualized pricing meets urgency.

A search for an emergency plumber at 2 a.m., last-minute airfare after a family crisis, or a baby thermometer at midnight may signal that waiting is not an option. Searches for eviction help, payday loans, or emergency medical care can reveal pressure without a company ever seeing a pay stub or medical record.

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Two people can see different prices, discounts, products, or financing offers on the same website and each assume everyone else received the same thing. Algorithms do not need a field labeled race, age, sex, or income to make sensitive inferences; ZIP code, device type, location, and shopping behavior can act as proxies.

Targeted pricing is not inherently abusive. It could reward loyal customers or offer discounts to families under pressure. The problem is secrecy: Sellers can know far more about buyers than buyers know about the offer in front of them.

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Transparency is the minimum

Companies should disclose when personal data or AI materially shapes a price or offer and identify the categories of information involved. Regulators have a role, but entrepreneurs can also build independent tools that compare prices across accounts, devices, and locations.

Companies watch us. We need better tools to watch them back.

When a company knows you are desperate, that desperation should never become a hidden advantage it can use against you.

(*) Full article: https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/when-your-desperation-becomes-part-of-the-price