The Federal Trade Commission has ordered nine prominent U.S. companies to hand over internal information regarding how they utilize consumer personal data to establish prices and calculate gig worker compensation. The inquiry follows recent federal and state probes into what regulators describe as surveillance pricing, alongside lawsuits alleging that consumers have faced varying prices based on their individual purchase histories.
The agency’s directive, announced Wednesday, targets nine major corporations: Walmart, Uber, Target, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart. According to the FTC, the probe aims to examine the opaque methodologies businesses deploy to determine what individual customers pay for goods and services.
For rideshare and delivery platforms, the inquiry will also scrutinize how companies calculate pay for gig workers. Regulators noted that offers extended to drivers often rely on complex, opaque formulas that may incorporate smartphone usage data or an individual driver’s historical rate of accepting previous job offers.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson stated that the agency intends to scrutinize the obscure pricing systems utilized across these industries. State lawmakers have also begun targeting the practice, with legislation introduced in several states aimed at banning surveillance pricing and electronic shelf labels that could dynamically adjust costs based on shopper habits and online tracking.
The federal agency’s latest action arrives just days after the FTC and 20 states filed a joint lawsuit against Dollar General on Monday. That complaint alleges the discount retailer repeatedly overcharged customers and mislabeled shelf prices despite corporate leadership allegedly being aware of the discrepancies.
