Surveillance pricing revealed: how companies use your data to charge you more than your peers and how you can beat them

Your neighbors might be paying less for the same groceries you buy every week.In the age of “surveillance pricing,” the cost of an item is being determined by your personal information.

Companies are using your personal data to figure out how much they believe you are willing to pay.Now everyone from lawmakers to online influencers are starting to fight back against what many see as algorithmically driven price gouging.Surveillance pricing is what happens when companies track who you are, where you live, the devices you use and your purchase history, then quietly adjust online prices based on that data.

The profiling begins as soon as someone lands on a product page.Your preferred browser, your zip code, how long you spend on product pages — it’s all part of the equation.

The more companies know, the more they can potentially charge you.Surveillance pricing is not the same thing as surge pricing, the practice of temporarily raising prices during spikes in demand or lack of supply.The big difference is transparency.“When using a rideshare app like Uber or Lyft, everyone sees the same pricing and companies [typically] disclose when and why prices are being inflated,” says Michael Lai, CEO of SmartCustomer, an online consumer-protection platform.

In contrast, “surveillance pricing is invisible and personal.Two people can add the same item to their shopping carts at the same time and see completely different prices, and neither is aware of what happened.”Those algorithms don’t ask “What’s the price?” They ask “What’s your price?” If you’ve checked the same flight three times in a day, the system may tag you as eager.

If you live in a wealthy neighborhood, it may assume you can afford more.Some travelers report different prices when checking flights from a phone versus a laptop, or from a private browsing window versus a regular one.With any luck, it will backfire.

“Surveillance pricing is the intersection of two things Americ...