FTC Studies Personalised Pricing at 9 US Firms

The US Federal Trade Commission has ordered nine airlines, ride-hailing, food-delivery and retail companies to explain whether they use personal data to set what individual customers pay and what gig workers earn.

The orders went to Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart, the FTC said in a press release on 28 October. On X, the agency said the orders “seek pricing and compensation methodology” from the companies. They have 45 days to respond.

This is a study, not a lawsuit. The orders are issued under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which lets the agency demand information for research. The FTC says such studies have no specific law enforcement purpose, and none of the nine companies is accused of breaking the law. The FTC can, however, go to federal court to force a company to comply. The Commission voted 2-0 to issue the orders.

What the FTC wants to know

On the pricing side, the FTC wants to know whether companies charge different people different prices for the same product or service, and how. Among the factors it lists are loyalty programmes and the “analysis of personal data by superintelligence algorithms”.

On the pay side, the question is whether gig workers doing the same job are paid differently, and why. The FTC says pay could depend on factors such as a driver’s “phone usage or acceptance history for past offers”.

“We intend to scrutinize the opaque methodology that some companies in these industries may be using to determine how much consumers pay or how much gig workers are paid for the same product or service,” said FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson. “Consumers deserve to know whether companies use their web surfing habits or other personal data to estimate the highest price they can charge each consumer. Workers also deserve to know if their compensation is affected by how companies use their personal data.”

The inquiry also reverses course on the FTC’s last look at the subject. The agency says its 2024 study “examined only middlemen consultancies”, rather than the companies that set prices. “This study corrects the Commission’s mistaken 2024 approach,” it said.

Two of the nine firms are in the middle of a bigger deal. DoorDash has agreed to buy Instacart for $17bn, which already faces a long antitrust review. The FTC’s orders now ask both companies to open up how they price orders and pay couriers while that deal is pending.

Why gig pay is the sharper half of the inquiry

Personalised pricing gets the headlines, but the pay question may matter more. A shopper can at least compare a fare with a friend’s, switch apps or walk away. A driver or courier usually sees only their own offer, and has no way to tell whether the next person was offered more for the same trip. If pay is shaped by how often someone accepts jobs or how they use their phone, the people most dependent on the work could end up with the lowest offers, and never know it.

The FTC is also going straight to the companies this time. Studying intermediaries could only show what was on offer. Asking airlines, apps and retailers how they actually set prices and pay is a far more direct test, and the answers could shape any later rule-making or cases, even though this study cannot itself produce penalties.

The timing matters as retailers prepare for AI agents that shop on people’s behalf. Walmart has already set up profiles and rules for AI agents that shop for customers. If prices are tuned to each buyer, the same question will soon apply when software does the buying.

Worker data is drawing scrutiny elsewhere too. In Europe, privacy group noyb has accused Scale AI’s Outlier of tracking its AI trainers. In the US, TSN has covered Axios’s report that the FTC sent civil investigative demands to OpenAI and Anthropic, a different tool from a 6(b) study. For now, the nine companies have 45 days to explain their methods. What they hand over should show whether pricing and pay tuned to each person is a fringe practice or a routine one.