Lindsay Owens' Book Targets 90 AI Pricing Bills as 95% of Adults Face Data-Driven Gouging
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 28
Lindsay Owens' Book Targets 90 AI Pricing Bills as 95% of Adults Face Data-Driven Gouging
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 28
Summary
Owens argues in Gouged that U.S. shoppers face a “reinvention of the rip-off,” with companies using AI pricing tools and weak competition to push prices beyond higher costs.
95% of adults are covered by at least one broker’s consumer profiles, she says, giving retailers and pricing consultants data to test, steer and sometimes personalize prices to each shopper’s pain point.
Her proposed fixes include banning shared software used to coordinate prices, forcing AI shopping assistants to act in consumers’ interest, and updating privacy and consumer laws that she says lag e-commerce.
90 bills in states and cities already seek to curb algorithmic price fixing, while the FTC is reviewing about 1,000 public comments and companies including Wendy’s, Delta and Instacart have backed off some pricing plans after backlash.
Owens says the cost-of-living squeeze is far from over, warning that shocks such as trade tensions and the Iran war can mask opportunistic price increases and fuel a broader consumer-rights push.