Surveillance pricing, also known as personalized or algorithmic pricing, is a practice where companies use your personal data, such as your location, the device you’re using, your browsing history, and even your income, to determine what price to show you. It’s not just about supply and demand — it’s about you as a consumer and how much the system thinks you’re able (or willing) to pay.
Have you ever shopped online for a flight(новое окно), only to find that the price mysteriously increased the second time you checked? Or have you and a friend searched for the same hotel room on your phones, only to find your friend sees a lower price? This isn’t a glitch — it’s surveillance pricing at work.
In the United States, surveillance pricing is becoming increasingly prevalent across various industries, including airlines, hotels, and e-commerce platforms. It exists elsewhere, but in other parts of the world, such as the European Union, there is a growing recognition of the danger this pricing model presents to citizens’ privacy, resulting in stricter data protection laws aimed at curbing it. The US appears to be moving in the opposite direction.
In this article we’ll look at:
- What is surveillance pricing?
- How does surveillance pricing work?
- Which companies use surveillance pricing?
- Is surveillance pricing legal in the US?
- Surveillance pricing around the world
- How to avoid surveillance pricing
- A deeply unfair practice
What is surveillance pricing?
At its core, surveillance pricing is the practice of adjusting prices based on the personal data collected from an individual. Unlike traditional dynamic pricing(новое окно), which changes prices based on time, demand, or supply, surveillance pricing uses who you are and how you behave online to determine the price you see.
Companies gather data from a wide range of sources to build a profile of each customer. This data can include:
- Your location: Are you shopping from a wealthy ZIP/postal code (which can also lead to racial discrimination(новое окно))?
- Device type: Are you using an iPhone or an older Android?
- Browsing history: Have you looked at this item multiple times?
- Purchase behavior: Are you a repeat buyer? Do you often choose premium options?
- Login status: Have you signed in to a loyalty program or rewards account?
These details feed into algorithms that can predict your price sensitivity — essentially, how much they think you’re willing to pay. If the system believes you’re less likely to comparison shop or more likely to pay full price, it might show you a higher price than someone else sees for the same product or service.
What makes surveillance pricing controversial isn’t just the price difference — it’s that you usually don’t know it’s happening. There’s rarely any disclosure or obvious way to compare your price with what others see. This lack of transparency makes surveillance pricing fundamentally different from things like coupons, sales, or even “traditional” dynamic pricing.
How does surveillance pricing work?
The goal of surveillance pricing is to find the maximum price you’ll tolerate before walking away. This is a concept known in economics as first-degree price discrimination(новое окно). It uses advanced data analytics and algorithms to dynamically adjust prices based on your individual data. It uses your data to profile you and adjusts the prices you see in real time based on this profile.
Surveillance pricing is only possible if the merchant has your data. This is gathered via multiple channels, including:
- Cookies and device and browser fingerprinting(новое окно)
- Mobile apps that access location or device data
- Loyalty cards and programs that log your past purchases
- Social media activity
- Search behavior (especially when you’re logged into accounts). For example, if you sign in to Amazon and browse a particular product multiple times without buying, Amazon might infer high interest and raise the price slightly the next time you look for it.
Which companies use surveillance pricing?
The following examples show how companies leverage your personal data to adjust pricing dynamically:
- Target agreed to pay $5 million in civil penalties(новое окно) after its app was found to increase prices for people based on their location. For example, it charged $100 more(новое окно) for TVs if someone was in the Target parking lot because the closer they were to the store, the more likely they were to pay.
- Amazon’s pricing algorithms change its prices over 2.5 million times a day(новое окно) based on various factors, including demand and user behavior.
- Staples(новое окно) charged customers different prices on its website based on estimations about their location — charging people more when they were in areas with fewer competitors
- Uber has admitted(новое окно) other effects that “land-use/neighborhood patterns, trip purposes, time of day, and other effects” go into pricing, while Lyft said, “there are many factors that go into pricing time of day, trip purposes, and more”. Uber has been accused(новое окно) of increasing fares for users with low battery on their phones on the assumption they will pay more.
- The travel booking site Orbitz(новое окно) directed Mac users toward more expensive hotel options based on data indicating that Mac users tend to spend more on accommodation.
Is surveillance pricing legal in the US?
In the United States, surveillance pricing is widespread and largely unregulated. Unlike in the European Union, where privacy laws such as the GDPR(новое окно) limit how companies can use personal data, the US lacks any federal legislation that directly addresses personalized pricing practices.
This regulatory gap allows businesses to collect and exploit consumer data with minimal oversight as long as they avoid overtly deceptive or discriminatory practices that violate existing consumer protection or civil rights laws. In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission(новое окно) (FTC) announced(новое окно) interest in enacting new regulations to tackle the issue, and in the last days of the Biden administration, it released a report(новое окно) and published a blog post(новое окно) advocating for concrete regulatory action over surveillance pricing.
However, the Trump administration has made it clear that it has little interest in this digital protection for consumers. In response, California, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado, and New York have introduced state-level legislation(новое окно) to curb surveillance pricing.
Although facing stiff opposition from tech industry groups such as TechNet(новое окно), these bills, particularly the California bill, may have a wide-ranging impact. Passed by the California Assembly(новое окно) on May 12, 2025, Assembly Bill 446(новое окно) could become a national standard, similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA21`)(новое окно). As the bill’s author, San Diego Assemblyman Christopher Ward, noted:
“I believe that [surveillance pricing] is predatory, it’s discriminatory, and it violates a public trust when consumers are already stretched thin and don’t deserve to be unwittingly exploited”.
Surveillance pricing around the world
Although largely unregulated in the US, other countries have taken a more muscular approach to protecting consumer data and limiting how it can be used for algorithmic pricing. `
European Union
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is among the strictest privacy laws in the world. It doesn’t directly ban personalized pricing, but it places serious limits on how companies can collect and use personal data, especially for automated decision-making. Key GDPR protections relevant to surveillance pricing include:
- Right to be informed: Companies must be transparent about what data they collect and how it’s used.
- Right to object: Consumers can object to profiling and automated decision-making.
- Explicit consent: Companies must often obtain clear consent before using personal data for pricing decisions.
In practice, European companies are more cautious about using surveillance pricing — especially when tied to sensitive characteristics like race, income, or location. Following official guidance(новое окно), they must include clear disclaimers when offering dynamic or algorithmic pricing or use standardized pricing.
United Kingdom
While no longer part of the EU, the UK GDPR(новое окно) remains broadly aligned with the GDPR. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has also expressed concern(новое окно) about algorithmic harms, including discriminatory pricing, and has promised to work with the ICO(новое окно) and Ofcom(новое окно) to help address these concerns.
Canada
Canada’s Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA)(новое окно), part of its proposed Digital Charter(новое окно), aims to improve transparency and give consumers more control over their data. While it’s still in development, this reflects a growing awareness of how behavioral targeting (including pricing) is bad for consumers.
More generally, across the globe, there’s a growing trend(новое окно) toward algorithmic accountability, consumer education on digital pricing, and creating legal frameworks that limit abusive use of data. However, enforcement remains inconsistent, and the citizens of many countries remain vulnerable to opaque and exploitative surveillance pricing practices.
How to avoid surveillance pricing
It’s difficult to detect or avoid surveillance pricing entirely, especially if you use mobile apps that can access a huge amount of your personal data. However, there are some things you can do to reduce how much companies know about you.
1. Use a browser, not an app
Mobile apps typically collect a huge amount of personal data about you, which they send directly to their developers. Browsers (including mobile browsers) do not send anywhere near as much data(новое окно) to the websites you visit and may include privacy features such as tracking protection and fingerprinting(новое окно) resistance.
Learn about the best browsers for your privacy(новое окно)
2. Block third-party cookies
Third-party cookies are small text files stored on your browser that exist almost entirely to track your behavior across different websites. Blocking them in your browser deprives companies of some of the data they use for surveillance pricing.
Learn how to block third-party cookies on all browsers
3. Use a VPN
A VPN hides the single most revealing thing about you to app developers and websites — your IP address. It also stops your ISP from knowing what you do online and selling that data(новое окно) to companies that use surveillance pricing. With a paid Proton VPN account, our NetShield Ad-blocker DNS filtering feature will protect you against a range of tracker scripts.
4. Compare prices across devices and browsers
When researching goods and services, try to perform multiple searches on different devices and browsers to see if there is any change in price.
Final thoughts: A deeply unfair practice
Surveillance pricing is not science fiction. It’s here and embedded in the everyday experiences of online shopping, ride-hailing, and even education services(новое окно). By quietly collecting and analyzing vast amounts of consumer data, companies can invisibly adjust prices based on who you are, where you are, what device you use, and how likely you are to pay.
Companies often claim this practice is nothing more than harmless personalization. But it furthers discrimination, exploitation, and inequity, especially when pricing is influenced by sensitive traits like race, income level, or where you live.
Ultimately, only legislators have the power necessary to reign in the rampant abuses of surveillance pricing. That’s why it’s unfortunate the FTC has abandoned its work on surveillance pricing, leaving it to individual states to pick up the pieces. Consumers elsewhere may be luckier.
That said, by avoiding apps and using a VPN, you can help limit the data companies collect to profile you for surveillance pricing.
