The US Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry into surveillance pricing on Wednesday, ordering nine major airlines, retailers, and ride-hailing companies to disclose how personal customer data shapes individual charges and gig worker wages. The orders target Walmart, Target, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and JetBlue, giving each firm 45 days to produce internal records.
Key points
- The Federal Trade Commission ordered nine transport, delivery, and retail companies to disclose how algorithmic systems alter prices and pay.
- Regulators are probing whether platforms use browsing habits, loyalty programmes, or AI models to charge consumers the highest possible rate.
- The investigation also demands records on algorithmic pay structures that calculate the lowest wage an individual gig worker will accept.
- Corporate targets have 45 days to hand over records or face enforcement actions in federal court.
The scope of the federal inquiry
The document requests seek to determine whether automated systems tailor prices for products, travel fares, and food deliveries based on private consumer profiles. Officials want to inspect the mathematical models and data streams that businesses feed into their commercial algorithms.
According to an agency press release, investigators will examine whether businesses alter costs based on loyalty scheme enrolments, web browsing behaviour, or automated analyses. The document requests also examine systems that regulators described as superintelligence algorithms, a term used by federal officials to classify advanced artificial intelligence models that assess buyer behaviour.
The orders carry legal force under the Federal Trade Commission Act, which permits the agency to conduct broad market studies even in the absence of a specific enforcement case. If any of the nine firms fail to hand over the demanded files within 45 days, the agency can seek a court order in federal district court to compel compliance.
How algorithms calculate prices and pay
Surveillance pricing relies on collecting individual behavioural data, device metrics, and purchase histories to forecast the maximum price an individual buyer will tolerate before abandoning a purchase. In retail and transport, dynamic software can quietly test distinct pricing tiers against different users searching for the same item at the same minute.
The federal probe treats worker compensation as the mirror image of customer pricing. The commission directed delivery and ride-hailing companies to submit the inputs, tools, and procedures they use to set compensation for independent contractors on platforms such as Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart.
Regulators suspect that apps deploy opaque formulas to determine the absolute lowest pay rate an individual driver or courier will accept for a specific job. These algorithms reportedly analyse historical acceptance patterns, shift hours, and mobile phone usage to lower individual payouts, creating variable wage floors across the same city streets.
Andrew N. Ferguson, the commission chairman, said officials plan to scrutinise the opaque methods firms use to determine customer bills and worker earnings. Ferguson said consumers deserve to know whether businesses use web surfing habits to set prices, while workers deserve to know if personal data cuts their pay.
A reversal of previous regulatory tactics
The latest orders represent a sharp change in how federal regulators approach automated pricing models. In July 2024, under former chair Lina Khan, the commission launched a similar inquiry aimed at eight intermediaries, including management consultancies and pricing software vendors such as McKinsey & Company, Accenture, and Revionics.
Khan released preliminary findings from that investigation in January 2025, shortly before stepping down from the agency. Ferguson criticised that release, stopped the investigation, and chose not to publish the remaining data.
The commission argued on Wednesday that the 2024 inquiry targeted the wrong layer of the market by focusing on software consultancies that sell pricing engines rather than the brands deploying them. The agency said the earlier study failed to expose actual commercial pricing practices, forcing regulators to query customer-facing operators directly.
The current action builds on a proposed enforcement policy statement issued by the agency in August. That policy warned businesses that calculating prices through the undisclosed harvesting of individual customer records could constitute an unlawful, deceptive commercial practice under federal law.
Industry pushback and denial
Several companies named in the orders have rejected allegations that they test or use automated surveillance to alter rates for individual buyers.
Delta Air Lines denied that its booking systems alter flight costs based on individual identity. A spokesperson for the airline said: “There is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal data.”
Instacart also rejected the characterisation of its grocery marketplace, saying the platform does not deploy surveillance pricing tools and never uses personal information to alter food prices. Target referred inquiries to an online corporate fact sheet outlining its commercial practices, which states that prices remain uniform across identical sales channels.
Walmart has previously faced scrutiny from consumer groups over digital retail patents. One patent filed by the retail giant outlines technology that uses electronic shelf labels to change prices dynamically based on customer shopping habits, such as raising the price of complementary groceries once an initial product enters a basket. Walmart has stated it has no plans to deploy that technology in stores.
What happens next
The nine corporate targets must assemble their data science documentation, internal communications, algorithmic audits, and contractor pay logs before the 45-day deadline expires in mid-December.
Agency staff will evaluate the submissions to establish whether any company misled buyers about how prices were calculated or violated consumer protection rules. If the findings show systematic deception or unfair competition, the commission can vote to open formal enforcement lawsuits, issue civil penalties, or publish binding trade regulations prohibiting personalised pricing models entirely.
