Trump’s FTC Wants You to Call Surveillance Pricing ‘Personalized Pricing’

The Federal Trade Commission announced this week that the agency is seeking public comment about a new policy document on surveillance pricing, warning companies that they could be breaking the law if they use personal data to charge consumers higher prices. It was a surprise move for President Donald Trump’s administration, which killed a Biden-era FTC study on surveillance pricing in 2025.

But there’s one thing about the new FTC announcement that’s very different from how President Joe Biden’s administration handled the topic of surveillance pricing. Trump’s FTC doesn’t call it surveillance pricing at all. They call it personalized pricing . And it’s an interesting move that seems to already be having real-world implications about how the issue is discussed in the media.

“The FTC does not have the legal authority to ban personalized pricing in all circumstances, but businesses that fail to tell consumers how their personal data is being used to set a price may be in violation of the FTC Act and other laws we enforce,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement.

“We are seeking public input on this draft statement, which would put businesses engaged in or considering personalized pricing on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will not hesitate to enforce the law in this space,” Ferguson continued.

That simple statement seemed to cause a shift in the national discussion on the topic. News outlets from CBS News to PBS used the term personalized pricing this week after the FTC announcement. PBS used the term surveillance pricing back in Dec. 2025 . CBS News used the term surveillance pricing as recently as last month .

Surveillance pricing has become a hot-button issue in recent years as companies deploy technology in new ways to squeeze every last penny out of consumers. Instacart got heat in 2025 for charging some customers up to nearly 25% more for the same item. And Delta has also received criticism for its AI-driven pricing strategy in recent years, along with other airlines.

Charging customers more for various items based on data that’s been collected on them is no longer limited by primitive internet tech that may have existed 20 years ago. AI’s ability to sift through enormous amounts of data and draw connections opens new worlds of possibility. The only thing that can constrain this type of behavior is government intervention.

There’s been public backlash, and it’s been surprisingly bipartisan, as a congressional hearing from earlier this month demonstrated. Republicans and Democrats alike criticized surveillance pricing as predatory during a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee titled, “ Your Data, Their Profit: the Consumer Cost of AI Surveillance Pricing .”

The senators repeatedly talked about it as surveillance pricing, with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri insisting, “AI surveillance pricing is the unholy trinity of everything Americans hate: spying on people, ripping them off, and taking away jobs.”

But the FTC’s announcement this week is clearly shifting the way it’s discussed.