The Federal Trade Commission is investigating how companies like Mastercard and JPMorgan Chase use AI and personal data for services that allow companies to set different prices for different people.
The FTC ordered it to obtain information from eight companies that offer so-called “surveillance pricing” products and services that contain data about consumers’ characteristics and behavior.
The regulator says it wants to better understand the “opaque market” where algorithms and AI are used along with personal information – such as location, demographics, credit history and browsing or purchasing history – to categorize people and set a target price for a product or service.
Lina M Khan, chairwoman of the FTC, says: “Companies that collect personal data from Americans can put people’s privacy at risk.” Now companies could exploit this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices.
“Americans deserve to know whether companies are using detailed consumer data to conduct price surveillance, and the FTC’s investigation will shed light on this opaque ecosystem of price intermediaries.”
The orders were sent to Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture and McKinsey & Co.
They request information about the types of monitoring price products and services each company has produced. the data sources used; to whom the products and services were offered and what those customers intended to do with them; and the impact on consumers and prices.