Consumer Reports submitted comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed enforcement policy regarding personalized pricing.
The draft enforcement policy would require companies to disclose their use of personalized pricing, as well as the basis of the personalization and the specific consumer data that they use.
Consumer Reports urged the Commission to go further and prohibit personalized pricing, citing evidence that disclosures often fail to protect consumers in practice and writing that a ban was well within the agency’s Section 5 authority.
CR also urged the Commission to put reasonable safeguards in place surrounding individualized discounts that rely on consumer’s personal data. Without safeguards, these discounts can function just like personalized pricing, resulting in higher prices for the consumers with the highest need, or highest willingness to pay. CR also urged the Commission to enforce its longstanding guidance on fake discounts; fake discounts continue to deceive customers, but the Commission has seemingly not enforced this guidance in decades.
For more, see the full comment linked above.