FTC orders nine companies to say whether personal data shapes their prices and pay

The Federal Trade Commission said on Oct. 28 that it has sent orders to nine companies asking how they use personal data when they set prices for consumers and, in the case of ride-hailing and delivery platforms, pay for drivers. The orders went to Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart. They were issued under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which the agency's release describes as authority to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose. The FTC has not accused any of the nine companies of breaking the law, and recipients have 45 days from receipt to respond.

The Commission voted 2-0 to issue the orders. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in the release that the agency intends to examine the methodology some companies in these industries may be using to set what consumers pay and what gig workers earn, and that consumers should know whether their browsing or other personal data is being used to estimate the most they are willing to pay. He added that workers should know whether their pay depends on how companies use their personal data.

What the orders ask

On the consumer side, the FTC wants to know whether the price of a ticket, a ride, a delivery or another product varies from person to person, and if so what inputs, tools and procedures produce that price. The release names loyalty program participation and analysis of personal data such as web browsing habits as the kinds of factors it is asking about. On the labor side, it asks ride-hailing and food delivery companies whether driver compensation is adjusted using information such as phone usage or a driver's history of accepting past offers, and how those decisions are made.

The release states that if a company fails to respond, the Commission can seek to compel compliance in federal court. It does not set out what the agency will publish when the study is complete.

In a July 2024 concurring statement on an earlier round of pricing orders, Ferguson wrote that 6(b) orders are not an enforcement action, that it does not matter whether a study reveals illegal conduct, and that such studies may inform future enforcement but need not. He also described personalized pricing as a long-standing and ordinary practice in categories such as insurance and credit, where price necessarily reflects a customer's details, and said the question for the study was whether the practice had spread to goods that consumers would not expect to be priced that way.

What the companies have said

Several of the recipients had already set out their pricing positions in public before the orders arrived, and others responded to reporters afterward. None of the statements below were made in response to any finding, because there is no finding yet.

Walmart president and CEO John Furner published a letter to customers on Sept. 25 that says the company prices the product rather than the person, and that a shopper's income, purchase history, urgency or estimated ability to pay will not change what they are charged. The letter also says information shared with Walmart's Sparky shopping assistant will not be used to raise prices or hide cheaper options, that digital shelf labels exist to keep shelf prices matched to checkout, and that employees will keep overseeing pricing.

Target updated a pricing fact sheet on its corporate site on Oct. 15 that says it does not use personal information to raise prices based on who a shopper is, where they live or when they shop, and does not change prices by time of day or during periods of high demand. The same page says prices can differ by location because of local costs, regulation and competition, that some discounts apply only to a specific store or to online shopping, and that its Target Circle loyalty program may use shopping history to surface offers.

The Associated Press reported statements from three more companies. Delta said it has zero tolerance for discriminatory or predatory pricing, complies with pricing and advertising law, and has no fare product in use, in testing or planned that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal data. JetBlue said it does not use personal information or browsing history to set individual fares and that all customers have access to the same fares, which are set by demand and seat availability. Instacart said shopper pay is based on job-related factors such as distance, item count and expected shopping time, and that it does not use consumers' personal information to set prices, which are set by the retailers on its platform.

The AP's report did not include statements from United, Lyft, Uber or DoorDash. DoorDash and Instacart were named in orders the FTC announced one day before the two companies announced an agreement for DoorDash to buy Instacart, which MarketScale covered separately on Thursday. The FTC release does not connect the orders to that transaction.

How the FTC got here

This is the agency's second round of 6(b) orders on the subject. In July 2024 the Commission sent orders to pricing intermediaries, and in January 2025 it released interim staff findings based on documents from six of them: Mastercard, Accenture, PROS, Bloomreach, Revionics and McKinsey. Staff reported that those firms worked with at least 250 clients, including grocery and apparel retailers, and that the tools could draw on location, demographics, browsing patterns, shopping history and even in-page behavior such as mouse movements and abandoned carts. The examples in that release were hypothetical because the FTC publishes only aggregated or anonymized information from 6(b) studies. The vote to release the findings was 3-2, with Ferguson and Melissa Holyoak dissenting.

The Oct. 28 release characterizes that earlier study as having examined only middlemen consultancies rather than the businesses that actually set consumer prices, and says the agency therefore learned nothing about actual pricing decisions. The new orders go to the companies that set prices and pay directly.

In between, on Aug. 19, the Commission voted 2-0 to seek public comment on a proposed enforcement policy statement on personalized pricing. That statement says consumers expect prices to move with supply and demand rather than with their browsing or purchase history, that a business implying a price is fixed when it varies by individual risks misleading customers, and that undisclosed collection or use of personal data to set an individual price could violate Section 5 of the FTC Act.

Ferguson said at the time that the agency lacks authority to ban personalized pricing outright but will enforce the law against businesses that hide how personal data affects prices. The FTC's docket page lists Sept. 25 as the comment due date after a one-week extension granted in September. The AP reported that legislators in at least 30 states considered pricing-related bills this year, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures.

What this means for operators

For the nine recipients, the immediate work is document production: pricing and pay methodologies, the data inputs that feed them, and the procedures around them, within 45 days. For every other retailer, airline and platform, the practical signal is in the August policy statement rather than in the orders. The agency's stated position is that personalized pricing is not illegal on its own, but that failing to disclose it, or collecting data for it without consent, may be. Companies that already price uniformly have begun saying so in plain language on their own sites, as Walmart and Target have, and the orders make it more likely that others will be asked the same question.