CDT's Senior Counsel for Competition Policy George Slover ft. in LA Times on the FTC’s recent investigation into “surveillance pricing” which uses algorithms & AI to offer personalized prices online based on a customer’s ability or willingness to pay. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-07-23/ftc-investigates-surveillance-pricing-ai-data-mining
“[Slover said] ‘bespoke pricing’ amounts to an extreme reversal of a system that has worked for consumers since the advent of the price tag.” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-07-23/ftc-investigates-surveillance-pricing-ai-data-mining
“Instead of sellers offering goods and services to anonymous buyers, [Slover] said, ‘the seller knows everything ab the buyer, & what they are likely, willing and able to pay’ — while keeping the buyer in the dark about what the seller is charging everyone else.” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-07-23/ftc-investigates-surveillance-pricing-ai-data-mining
Slover: “It inverts, or you might say perverts, the assumptions at the very foundation of the justification for the free market.” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-07-23/ftc-investigates-surveillance-pricing-ai-data-mining
@CenDemTech sounds like a misunderstanding of the free market.
I’d highlight that the description still talks about willingness to pay, so the core value of providing goods and services at prices that consumers find acceptable is still right there.
