这八家公司分别是①万事达卡、②摩根大通、③埃森哲、④咨询巨头麦肯锡、⑤将麦当劳和星巴克作为客户的软件公司Task、⑥与家得宝、Tractor Supply和杂货连锁店Hannaford合作的Revionics、⑦为FreshDirect、Total Wine和Puma提供服务的Bloomreach、以及⑧今年被评为微软公司年度互联网服务供应商的Pros。The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the USA is investigating the practice of "surveillance pricing" to seek more information on how artificial intelligence can quickly change pricing based on customer behavior and feature data.
"Lina Khan, the chairman of the FTC."The FTC stated that many companies use this method to charge different prices to different customers.
The commission has issued mandatory information requests to eight companies. The FTC said these companies are promoting their artificial intelligence and other technology tools, as well as a large amount of customer information, to price different individual customers.
The eight companies are: 1) Mastercard, 2) JPMorgan, 3) Accenture, 4) the consulting giant McKinsey, 5) software company Task, which serves customers such as McDonald's and Starbucks, 6) Revionics, which collaborates with Home Depot, Tractor Supply, and grocery chain Hannaford, 7) Bloomreach, which provides services to FreshDirect, Total Wine, and Puma, and 8) Pros, which was named as Microsoft's annual Internet-related service provider this year.
FTC Chairman Lina Khan said in a press release, "Companies that collect personal data of Americans may put people's privacy at risk. Now, companies may use this vast personal information warehouse to charge people higher prices."
Lina Khan described "surveillance pricing" as a "dark ecosystem of pricing intermediaries."
