Watch the full video HERE.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) pressed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson and Commissioner Mark Meador on actions they’re taking to protect consumers from “surveillance pricing,” which is the use of personal consumer data to create individualized prices. While the Biden Administration had initiated a Request for Information on the issue, Trump’s FTC closed the comment period three months early, calling into question their commitment to protecting consumers from abusive and unfair pricing tactics. Rosen pushed back against this decision last year in an effort to combat the use of AI to target consumers and raise prices.
Senator Rosen has been fighting for affordability and lower grocery prices for Nevadans. She introduced the No Tariffs on Groceries Act, which would exempt food and agricultural products from Trump’s tariffs. Last year, Senator Rosen demanded that the FTC investigate which big corporations are using Trump tariffs as an excuse to raise prices.
Find Excerpts From the Hearing Below:
Senator Rosen: “I want to focus on what I feel is the number one – one of the number one issues facing families in Nevada and across the country today, is in regards to rising costs. For some, certainly rising more than others, because I want to talk about surveillance prices. Under the former FTC Chair Lina Khan, the FTC issued a request for information regarding retailers’ use of surveillance pricing and the impact on consumer prices and competition.
However, under your FTC, Chair Ferguson, the Commission closed the comment period three months early. In response to a letter I sent you asking for an explanation why this critical opportunity for the public to weigh in was closed, you asserted that the outgoing Chair published materials that went beyond the scope of the Commission’s original 6B study on pricing. In that letter, you assured me that the Commission “Will not hesitate to use its law enforcement authority to deter unfair or deceptive acts or practices and unfair methods of competition including markets for or relating to algorithmic pricing.”
With everything from grocery to gas prices skyrocketing under this Administration’s tariffs and other misguided policies, I believe consumers need price transparency more than ever to make decisions to stretch their dollars as much as they can.
Consumers should not ever be profiled and charged different prices based on that profile. It is an abusive and unfair practice that uses consumer data against them. I was a computer programmer. I understand how this data is collected and how it is used, and when people go to shop, if I go to the grocery store, there should be one price for broccoli for all of us. Not some of us pay more and some of us – no one will pay less, I guarantee you on that one. And that is unfair. If I want to barter, I will go to, I don’t know, some of those – I don’t want to name any sites, there are barter sites on the internet, garage sales. I’ll go do that. But I don’t want to go to my department store, my home goods store, and certainly not my grocery store or gas station to say what they think I should pay based on some profile they make somewhere from someplace that may or may not be accurate.
Chair Ferguson, can you confirm today that the FTC under your leadership remains committed to enforcing the law and ensuring that companies are not using consumers’ data to unfairly charge customers higher prices for the same product, yes or no please?
Mr. Ferguson: “I definitely can commit, can say that we are committed to enforcing the law and I will point out that Instacart, very publicly, was discovered to have launched an experiment on personalized pricing. We opened an investigation into that and they shut it down shortly after our investigation. That is the first law enforcement action that the FTC, including under the previous Administration, took on this issue at all.”
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