A coalition of consumer and digital rights groups is pressing the Federal Trade Commission to take a harder line on surveillance pricing. In a comment filed on September 25, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with the Center for Digital Democracy, the Consumer Federation of America, Demand Progress, and the National Consumers League, urged the agency to treat the practice as an unfair act rather than merely a matter of inadequate disclosure.
The groups argue that the FTC's proposed enforcement policy, which focuses on transparency, does not go far enough. While disclosure can help consumers understand when prices are tailored to them, the advocates contend that the underlying data collection and price discrimination themselves cause harm that disclosure alone cannot fix.
The comment signals growing pressure on regulators to move beyond notice-and-choice approaches and consider whether surveillance pricing is inherently unfair. The FTC has not yet issued a final policy, and the coalition's position represents one side of an ongoing debate over how far the agency should go.