The Deseret News, the more widely-circulated of the two newspapers in the Salt Lake City area, recently published a very important, informative article. It is "How AI-driven pricing systems determine what you’re willing to pay," Art Raymond, September 14, 2025 (online at https://www.deseret.com/business/2025/09/14/artificial-intelligence-internet-tracking-surveillance-pricing-discrimination-data-privacy/)
This is how the article starts out:
They know who you are, where you live, how much money you make and where you spent your last vacation.
They’re watching what websites you visit, tracking your mouse movements while you’re there and what you’ve left behind in virtual shopping carts. Mac or PC? iPhone or Android? Your preferences have been gathered and logged.
And they’ve got the toolkit, powered by artificial intelligence software, to assemble all this information to zero in on exactly how much you’re likely willing to pay for any product or service that might strike your fancy.
The “they” is a combination of retailers and service providers, social media operators, app developers, big data brokers and a host of other entities with whom you have voluntarily and involuntarily shared personal and behavioral information. And they’ve even come up with new labels to make you feel better about the systems that are using your personal data to set a custom price.
Dynamic pricing. Personalized pricing. Even “discount pricing.”
People might think they have privacy when they turn off their camera app or leave their cellphone out of the restroom, but there are so many other ways to collect data on them these days. Surveillance is no longer the outdated practice of sitting outside a building in a van for hours like one sees in older crime shows.
Cellphones, smart watches, earbuds, and other new technologies make available to tech companies lots of our audio, video, typed, and biometric data, and those companies generally use third parties to analyze and utilize it in many ways that they do not always share with us. Look at the terms and conditions you are forced to agree to, and you'll see that they contain "wiggle room" especially when it comes to third parties.
In a preliminary report in January, the agency highlighted actions it’s already taken to quell the rise of surveillance pricing amid its effort to gather more in-depth information on the practice:
- One complaint issued by the FTC included allegations that a mobile data broker was harvesting consumer information and sensitive location data, including visits to health clinics and places of worship which was later sold to third-parties.
- The agency said it issued the first-ever ban on the use and sale of sensitive location data by a data broker which allegedly sold consumer location data it collected from third-party apps and by purchasing location data from other data brokers and aggregators.
- Another FTC complaint alleged that the data broker InMarket used consumers’ location data to sort them into particularized audience segments — such as “parents of preschoolers,” “Christian church goers,” “wealthy and not healthy” — which it then provided to advertisers.
Last year, the FTC issued orders to eight companies that offer surveillance pricing products and services that incorporate data about consumers’ characteristics and behavior. The orders, according to the agency, seek information about the potential impact these practices have on privacy, competition and consumer protection.
“Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk. Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices,” said then-FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”
(https://www.deseret.com/business/2025/09/14/artificial-intelligence-internet-tracking-surveillance-pricing-discrimination-data-privacy/)
Personal information, i.e. information about your person.
Consider what that term means when it comes to eye and face tracking and all the information that can be gleaned from cameras (and other image/light sensors) about our microexpressions and pupil widening/contraction. (See https://petticoatgovernment.blogspot.com/2025/06/artificial-intelligence-programs-use.html)
Consider what that means when it comes to heart rate tracking, something that can indicate heart problems and arousal states. Yes, your smart watch can transmit data that indicates when you are turned on. (See https://www.livescience.com/51361-womens-sexual-readiness-heart-rate-variability.html)
Consider what that means when it comes to electroencephalogram (EEG) functionality in wearable technologies. (See https://petticoatgovernment.blogspot.com/2025/08/measuring-brainwave-activity-from-arms.html)
Consider what that means in light of the apparent ability to use cellphones to do functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data collection on us, which I think, based on my research so far, uses superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) or something similarly tiny that could already be in some processed foods. (See "Hybrid ultra-low-field MRI and magnetoencephalography system based on a commercial whole-head neuromagnetometer." Magn Reson Med, 69: 1795-1804. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.24413. Vesanen, P.T., Nieminen, J.O., Zevenhoven, K.C.J., Dabek, J., Parkkonen, L.T., Zhdanov, A.V., Luomahaara, J., Hassel, J., Penttilä, J., Simola, J., Ahonen, A.I., Mäkelä, J.P. and Ilmoniemi, R.J. (2013); "SQUID-based systems for co-registration of ultra-low field nuclear magnetic resonance images and magnetoencephalography." Physica C: Superconductivity and its Applications, 482: 19-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physc.2012.04.028. A.N. Matlashov, E. Burmistrov, P.E. Magnelind, L. Schultz, A.V. Urbaitis, P.L. Volegov, J. Yoder, M.A. Espy (2012))
Exploitation of troves of this kind of personal information is or will be society-changing. I think such exploitation has already been being used to affect some trends in our country, including increasing polarization and disunity by some who want the USA to fail at safeguarding freedom around the world.
As I have indicated in previous blog posts, there have apparently been some secrets being kept in the publishing and scholarly fields for centuries. Those secrets are almost certainly now known to the data collectors and analyzers with their powerful computers. If the secrets haven't been exposed publicly, then it's because the data companies have found ways to exploit the secrets to manipulate people who think they are still protected by "veils" of secrecy.
[Update 9/23/2025: Quantum interference objects don't have to be supercold. They can be at room temperature. See for example Zheng, H., Hou, S., Xin, C. et al. Room-temperature quantum interference in single perovskite quantum dot junctions. Nat Commun 10, 5458 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13389-7.]
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