FTC's Office of Technology

ALT The FTC now invites public comments on the following questions: 1. Have you experienced surveillance pricing products or services? If yes, where do you think that surveillance pricing is happening? For example, have you ever noticed that you are being charged more or less for a product than a friend or family member from the same seller at the same time? Have you seen a product be “discounted” or “on sale” one week, but cost the same price another week without the discount or sale? Have you seen different prices between placing a product in cart and checking out? 2. If you have experienced and/or if you think that surveillance pricing may be happening, how does this impact how you shop? For example, has your desire or ability to shop been impacted by or have your shopping habits changed? How so? Have you developed any strategies when shopping online to approach or anticipate surveillance pricing? If yes, what strategies? 3. As a gig worker or employee, have you experienced and/or do

ALT Text: What Goes into Surveillance Pricing What's the price of X? [arrow] What's the price of X for consumer C through channel Z at location L at time T? Photo of X with price tag Price is increasingly multi-dimensional: - Price targeting tools can be used to make pricing recommendation changes at different frequencies - from minutes to monthly: Different people can get different prices. Companies can determine prices for different locations, stores, customers, up to and including individual transactions. Companies can pursue price complexity and scale with fewer resources.

ALT Text: The orders are seeking information on four major areas: Types of products and services being offered: The types of surveillance pricing products and services that each company has produced, developed, or licensed to a third party, as well as details about the technical implementation and current and intended uses of this technology; Data collection and inputs: Information on the data sources used for each product or service, including the data collection methods for each data source, the platforms and methods that were used to collect such data, and whether that data is collected by other parties (such as other companies or other third parties); Customer and sales information: Information about whom the products and services were offered to and what those customers planned to do with those products or services; and Impacts on consumers and prices: Information on the potential impact of these products and services on surveilled consumers including the prices they pay.

ALT Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Australia Federal Competition Authority, Austria Competition Bureau, Canada Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, Brazil Directorate-General for Competition, European Commission Autorité de la concurrence, France Bundeskartellamt, Germany Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, Italy Japan Fair Trade Commission, Japan Competition Authority of Kenya, Kenya Malaysia Competition Commission, Malaysia Comisión Federal de Competencia Económica, Mexico The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets, Netherlands Norwegian Competition Authority, Norway Autoridade da Concorrência, Portugal Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore, Singapore Competition Commission of South Africa, South Africa Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia, Spain Swedish Competition Authority, Sweden Competition Commission, Switzerland Turkish Competition Authority, Turkey UK Competition and Markets Authority U.S. Depart