By Kianna Amaya

Imagine you’re a college student majoring in animation and working on your final project that’s due in eight days. Suddenly, your computer crashes before you finish your project. In desperation, you search to see if your laptop can be repaired, to no avail. Maybe your files are recoverable in cloud storage, but the laptop itself is beyond repair. Now, you have no choice but to order a new one online. But, by now, your browsing history clearly shows you’re desperate and in dire need of a new computer as soon as possible. The retailer you purchase a new laptop from has access to this data and decided to charge $1,750 for that laptop instead of $1,300 because they know you have few other options.

Sounds quite exploitative, right? Like price gouging? Well, this is a tactic that companies across sectors from travel to retail and entertainment are using now in the United States. It’s a business tactic called surveillance pricing, which uses personal data to personalize prices for individuals. Essentially, two people purchasing the same product at the same time can pay vastly different amounts. With AI, companies using surveillance pricing can collect large amounts of consumer data to do so. There’s a lot of data they can use, like browsing history, demographics, location, device type, and social media accounts.

Surveillance pricing was in its earliest stages in the 2010s, only becoming more powerful and prevalent in the 2020s. I first learned about surveillance pricing a few years ago through mobile gaming, during a (brief) period of obsession with mobile games like Candy Crush Saga and Royal Match. I ended up looking up why mobile games are so addicting, and I learned that game developers use well-researched strategies to increase player engagement, ultimately hoping to extract a few bucks from players. Think about those micro-transactions you see for gems or some other in-game item that are $0.99 or $1.99. A sneaky thing these companies can do is study your data, including your playing style, location, device type, age, and many other factors, to determine exactly the prices to show you or how many deals to give you. The goal is to find the highest possible price a player may be willing to pay for these items. 100 gems for a 35-year-old player with an iPhone 17 in NYC could be $2.99, and for an 18-year-old in a low-income county using a Tracfone, it could be $0.99. This is, unfortunately, the power that access to tons of data and advanced technology can have. Now these exact tactics are being used in many different fields. I (maybe naively) never fully considered how pervasive surveillance pricing could get all those years ago, spreading to every industry and product. However, surveillance pricing is no longer just a fringe concern for mobile gaming. It's a much larger concern for consumers everywhere.

Back in 2015, ProPublica found that the price of SAT tutoring from The Princeton Review was nearly twice as likely to be higher for Asians than for non-Asians, based on zip code, even for Asians in low-income communities. Then, in 2019, KARE 11 investigated surveillance pricing at Target and found that product prices differ in the app depending on whether you’re inside or outside the store. One Target shopper they interviewed said that in-store, the app showed the price of an electronic shaver they purchased as $99.99, but once outside the store, it was $69.99. In December 2025, Consumer Reports published the findings from their investigation into surveillance pricing at Instacart. Instacart was running surveillance-pricing algorithmic experiments. Instacart shoppers said they were unaware of these experiences and felt they were “manipulative and unfair.” Recently, in June, a class action lawsuit was filed against The Washington Post. The Washington Post has been accused of using personal information from its readers to charge them as much as possible, depending on certain characteristics.

The FTC investigated companies that deploy surveillance pricing tactics in July 2024. Their initial findings, published in January 2025, showed that surveillance pricing is a multi-million-dollar industry and highly lucrative for corporate revenue. Former FTC Chair Lina Khan also raised a hypothetical in which airlines could use personal information, like a family member’s death, to increase costs of flights, exploiting a tragic situation. However, the investigation was halted in January 2025 by newly appointed FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson under the Trump administration. Unsurprising, I’d say.

Thinking about the history of pricing in the U.S., fixed prices–what we’ve been used to for decades–are a relatively new invention. All thanks to the price tag, which a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia popularized in the 1860s and 70s. Before that, prices were largely variable and could be haggled. Now, it seems like we've somehow reverted to what existed before the price tag. Except now, we can’t have one-on-one exchanges or negotiations with these companies. And many people don’t even know their prices are personalized. Without transparency, it isn’t always clear whether prices differ from person to person without experimentation or investigation. You could very well spend $100 more or less on your new laptop than your neighbor and have no clue. And that is a major problem.

Recently, new laws have been proposed, and in some cases passed, to address the problems of surveillance pricing, from lack of transparency to potential discrimination against protected classes like race. California introduced a bill to ban surveillance pricing in 2025, and it was shut down. However, it was reintroduced in 2026. Maryland was the first state to ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores and third-party services in April 2026. In June, New York passed the One Fair Price Act, banning surveillance pricing.

I view surveillance pricing as price gouging and exploitation. At first thought, some may assume surveillance pricing will extract the most from wealthier people who can afford to pay more, similar to how companies assume those with iPhones or other Apple products can afford to spend more. However, I am highly, highly concerned about the impact on low-income people who always receive the brunt of exploitation. Remember the example of The Princeton Review targeting Asians? It didn’t matter if they were from low-income communities or not. They were still more likely to be charged more. Consider when Staples charged customers more if they had fewer alternatives to shop from. Coming from a low-income rural community with incredibly limited options, I can only see this further disenfranchising such communities already struggling with fewer opportunities, resources, or state and federal support. I can only see this further discrimination with algorithmic precision. That doesn’t even touch on the privacy concerns that come with companies hoarding tons of personal data. Personalization comes at a cost.

Certainly, many companies will benefit from surveillance pricing, and some consumers may, on occasion, get a good deal. Still, I don’t believe it is worth implementing, especially when prices are already rising, and working-class people are stretched thin.

What surveillance pricing shows me, once again, is that technology only exacerbates what already exists. We already face rising costs of living that make life harder to manage. Now, with AI and the help of swathes of data, prices aren’t even clear anymore. Prices can be used to exploit people behind a shroud of ambiguity. What happens during an emergency where companies catch on and raise prices on you? What happens when POC are targeted and price gouged? These are the times we now find ourselves in.

Sources:

A Price Meant Just For You: The Advent of Surveillance Pricing

By Kianna Amaya

Gut Instinct

A Price Meant Just For You: The Advent of Surveillance Pricing

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