CDT Testimony before Pennsylvania Joint Hearing on Dynamic Pricing 

George Slover, competition policy counsel for CDT, testified at a joint hearing before the Pennsylvania Assembly’s House Majority Policy Committee and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, on the issue of dynamic pricing. 

His testimony focused primarily on one species of dynamic pricing, the more personally intrusive and abusive kind — secretly using a consumer’s personal data profile to size them up for their susceptibility to paying extra. It’s what CDT has been referring to as “bespoke pricing,” because the price is “tailor fitted” to the consumer. And like a tailor-made suit, the targeted consumer pays more.

Bespoke pricing is unfair, and it’s discriminatory. It’s Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” being turned against consumers, picking their pocket. 

The technology is readily available, and is becoming easier to use and more powerful with the advance of artificial intelligence. The temptation to use it will be hard to resist. We need to rein it in before it becomes widespread, in grocery shopping and elsewhere.

Slover also addressed another type of dynamic pricing the committees are examining — the use of artificial intelligence to change prices more frequently, to perceived fluctuations in market supply and demand. He told the committee that this could have an extremely disruptive effect on family budgets if the consumer entered a store to purchase products at an advertised price only to find them on the store shelves at a higher price. 

Read the full testimony.

Watch the hearing.