When a JetBlue customer complained on social media that his ticket price jumped $230 in a single day while he was booking a flight to a funeral, the airline’s response raised alarm bells: the company suggested he try clearing his cookies or booking in an incognito window. Screenshots of that exchange spread online, and JetBlue was quickly hit with two class action lawsuits alleging it secretly used customer data to set individualized ticket prices. Weeks later, the Washington Post faced its own class action after subscribers discovered it had been using their reading habits to decide who got a subscription discount and who paid full price. These cases mark the opening round of what regulators, lawmakers, and plaintiffs’ lawyers are calling “surveillance pricing” litigation, and the legal theory behind it could impact any employer using data-driven tools to set wages, schedules, or job assignments. What do you need to know about this new trend, and what five steps can you take today to assist your compliance efforts?
What is Surveillance Pricing?
Surveillance pricing (sometimes called algorithmic pricing) is different from the dynamic pricing consumers already expect, like airline tickets costing more as a flight fills up.
Instead, surveillance pricing uses data unique to an individual consumer, such as browsing history, location, device type, or shopping habits, to set a price for that specific person that has nothing to do with supply or demand. Two people buying the...
A journalist who spread false information about the family of then-presidential candidate Lee Jae Myung ahead of the 21st presidential election was fined. The Dae-gu District Court Andong Branch C...