Two people open the same grocery delivery app at the same time, looking at the same box of cereal. One sees $4.29. The other sees $5.27. Same product, same moment, different price - and neither has any idea the other price exists.
This is surveillance pricing, and it’s already happening at at least 250 retailers across the United States. On January 28, California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigative sweep targeting companies in retail, grocery, and hotels that use your personal data to calculate exactly how much you’re willing to pay - then charge you that amount.
How It Works
Surveillance pricing goes beyond the dynamic pricing you already know. Uber’s surge pricing during a rainstorm applies the same multiplier to everyone in the same area. What we’re talking about is different: individualized prices set by algorithms that profile you specifically.
The inputs feeding these algorithms include your browsing history, purchase patterns, device type, location data, ZIP code, time of day, and even your mouse movements on a webpage. An FTC investigation found that intermediary companies track behaviors as granular as what you leave unpurchased in an online shopping cart - then use that data to adjust what you see next time.
The companies doing the profiling aren’t obscure startups. The FTC sent investigation orders to Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, Accenture, McKinsey, and four pricing technology firms - Revionics, Bloomreach, Task Software, and PROS. These intermediaries work with hundreds of retailers to build pricing models trained on your data.
The Real-World Damage
Consumer Reports tested Instacart and found price variations of up to 23% on identical items. For a typical family, those discrepancies added up to over $1,200 per year. Instacart quietly halted its AI pricing experiments in December 2025 after the findings went public.
Airlines are further along. Delta is using an AI pricing tool from Fletcherr on roughly 20% of its seat inventory, up from 1% in late 2024. Delta’s president said openly: “We will have a price that’s available on that flight, on that time, to you, the individual.” Search for a flight three times, and the algorithm may interpret your behavior as urgency - and raise the price accordingly.
Polling from February 2026 shows consumers are catching on. 62% of Americans say they’re concerned about retailers using personalized data to set prices, and 66% say they would stop shopping with a retailer they caught doing it.
The problem is you’ll almost never catch them doing it.
Why This Is a Privacy Problem, Not Just a Pricing Problem
Surveillance pricing requires surveillance. To charge you a personalized price, a company needs a detailed profile of who you are, what you do online, where you live, what you earn, and how you shop. The pricing is the monetization layer built on top of a data collection apparatus that already tracks you across the web.
This is why California’s AG framed the investigation under the California Consumer Privacy Act, not pricing law. The CCPA’s “purpose limitation principle” restricts businesses to using personal data for purposes that consumers would reasonably expect. You might expect a grocery app to use your data to recommend products. You probably don’t expect it to calculate that you’ll pay $1.50 more for oat milk because you live in a high-income ZIP code and searched for organic food last Tuesday.
The investigation is also probing compliance with algorithmic pricing, competition, and anti-discrimination laws. Consumer advocates have flagged a “vulnerability tax” - people with less time to comparison-shop, those in food deserts with fewer delivery options, or those less technically savvy get hit hardest by the algorithm’s highest price points.
About 20 states now have privacy laws with similar purpose-limitation restrictions, which means California’s investigation could set a precedent that ripples nationally.
The Regulatory Landscape
California’s sweep didn’t come out of nowhere. The FTC published its surveillance pricing study in January 2025, documenting how widespread the practice had become. Senator Mark Warner followed up with a bipartisan push urging the FTC to crack down ahead of the 2025 holiday season.
New York passed the Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act in late 2025, requiring businesses to label prices that were set using algorithmic personalization. Several other states are expected to follow with similar transparency mandates in 2026.
Meanwhile, the FTC’s request for public comment on surveillance pricing closed on April 17, 2025, and further enforcement action is anticipated.
What You Can Do
You can’t fully escape surveillance pricing, but you can make yourself harder to profile.
Reduce the data they collect:
- Use a VPN or privacy-focused browser when shopping online
- Shop in incognito or private browsing mode and clear cookies before price-checking
- Install tracker-blocking extensions like uBlock Origin
- Limit app permissions - location, contacts, and browsing access are especially valuable to pricing algorithms
Compare prices across contexts:
- Check prices from different devices, browsers, or networks
- Compare the app price to the website price to the in-store price
- Try accessing the same product logged out vs. logged in
Report what you find:
- Document price discrepancies with screenshots
- File complaints with your state attorney general or the FTC
- The California AG’s office is actively collecting information on these practices
The uncomfortable truth is that every search, click, and purchase feeds the pricing model that determines what you pay next. The “free” apps and “personalized experiences” that companies offer aren’t generosity - they’re surveillance infrastructure with a business model attached. Your data isn’t just being collected. It’s being used to calculate exactly how much more you’ll tolerate paying.
California just told companies they need to explain themselves. Whether that’s enough remains to be seen.