Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Commerce Fee, speaks through the 2024 CNBC CEO Council Summit in Washington, D.C. on June 4, 2024.
Shannon Finney | CNBC
The Federal Commerce Fee is launching an investigation into so-called “surveillance pricing,” in search of extra details about how synthetic intelligence is used to vary pricing quickly based mostly on knowledge about buyer habits and traits.
The FTC says the observe permits firms to cost completely different prospects, completely different costs.
The company is serving eight firms with a compulsory request for info — all firms it says that publicize their AI and different tech instruments together with a trove of buyer info to focus on costs to particular person prospects.
The checklist contains Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture and consulting large McKinsey. It additionally contains software program agency Activity, which counts McDonald’s and Starbucks as shoppers; Revionics, which works with House Depot, Tractor Provide and grocery chain Hannaford; Bloomreach, which companies FreshDirect, Complete Wine and Puma; and Execs, which was named Microsoft’s web service vendor of the yr this yr.
“Corporations that harvest People’ private knowledge can put individuals’s privateness in danger,” FTC Chair Lina Khan mentioned in a information launch. “Now corporations might be exploiting this huge trove of non-public info to cost individuals increased costs.”
Kahn describes surveillance pricing as a “shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”
The FTC is demanding details about the forms of services and products supplied; how the businesses acquire shopper knowledge; who their prospects are; how the shoppers are utilizing this services or products; and what impression it has on shopper pricing.
The company’s enterprise the motion beneath its 6(b) authority, which authorizes it to gather info for research with out a particular regulation enforcement motion.
