this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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Your personal data, including your precise location, browser history, and even your mouse movements, is being used by some companies to show different prices for the same products—a phenomenon the FTC has dubbed "surveillance pricing."

According to a new FTC report, retailers are hiring "intermediary firms" to algorithmically tweak and target their prices. 

"Instead of a price or promotion being a static feature of a product, the same product could have a different price or promotion based on a variety of inputs—including consumer-related data and their behaviors and preferences, the location, time, and channels by which a consumer buys the product," the FTC says.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't this open up a clear pathway way to discrimination?

Even AI and data has bias, add that with malicious intent, and what stops a grocer from charging exploited communities higher prices?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 hours ago

Look at who's coming into power tomorrow, and who's sucking him off the most. This shit is about to get ten times worse.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)

Companies like Amazon been doing this for a long time. Yes, it's discriminatory. No one has done anything about it. And they probably won't for at least another 4 years.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

4 years

If we're lucky. And even if we have another president and that president is a Democrat and even if that president has a Democrat super majority in the House and Senate, I am not convinced that they will prioritize breaking up monopolies.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

Why 4 years? Edit: oh... Oh no.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

Buckle up, buckaroos!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

"Why pay for more Internet than you need to? Introducing MyPlan! Internet bills are getting out of control these days! And with tariff pricing looming in the near future, we understand how many folks need to curb their spending a bit to make ends meet. MyPlan only charges you for the Internet you use--and not for all that extra bandwidth you're wasting month after month. Call one of our service representatives today!"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

A plan like this would actually work if it were capped at the same price as an unlimited plan.

It never is though. Once I was lucky enough to exploit 1TB from a $70/month 5GB plan back in the days that my ISP didn't offer anything competitive. I ran that hustle for years.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

Sadly, I think the flat rate (which is inevitable) would be way more than what we want to pay. Then paying for the internet we use... So frickin expensive 😔 Great idea otherwise. It'd be awesome. We never use what we're paying for... But it's the minimum.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (4 children)

Why don't Americans put pressure on legislation like Europeans did with the GDPR?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 40 minutes ago

Because, for the last four or five decades, the wealthy in America have used assorted media to foment never ending religious, economic, and racial culture wars between different elements of the middle and lower classes. That constant state of conflict keeps the American people from ever being able to unite and accomplish anything at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 38 minutes ago

We would if it would make a difference.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Americans in aggregate simply don’t care. They don’t understand this, won’t take the time to understand it, and don’t care enough to understand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Americans care but they're bad at organizing. Significantly so. They fight amongst themselves and get caught up in drama. They spread misinformation and don't like facts that conflict with what they believe is right. So these kinds of movements stagnate unless someone with a specific type of charisma gives them a direction to follow.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Because they work three jobs to get food on their table and have to remortgage their house to pay for an ambulance. Privacy is a first-world problem and the US is a third-world country.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Still ain't buying their shit. I grow veggies and buy from Chinese market.

[–] randombullet 2 points 1 hour ago

How are you accessing the fediverse?