Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

Surveillance Pricing


Listen Later

When you shop online or through an app, do you ever wonder if you’re being charged the same as someone else for the same thing? Even controlling for things like shipping address and local taxes, it turns out that today it’s not uncommon for pricing to dynamically change based on factors that may not seem fair. This is called surveillance pricing. Justin Brookman (Consumer Reports) and Eric Gardner (More Perfect Union) recently performed a study on this practice using Instacart, and the results were eye-opening.

Interview Notes
  • Surveillance pricing study: https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/ 
  • Study video (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSC1w_Hjng6/ 
  • Study video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osxr7xSxsGo 
  • Consumer Reports: https://www.consumerreports.org/ 
  • More Perfect Union: https://perfectunion.us/ 
  • Get involved: https://action.consumerreports.org/ 
  • Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill: https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/ 
  • Pepsi/Walmart exposé: https://ilsr.org/article/independent-business/more-perfect-union-pepsi-walmart/ 
  • Amazon price tracker: https://camelcamelcamel.com/ 
  • Further Info
    • My book: https://fdsd.me/book 
    • My newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter 
    • Support the mission: https://fdsd.me/support 
    • Give the gift of privacy and security: https://fdsd.me/coupons 
    • Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch 
    • Table of Contents
      • 0:00:13: Intro
      • 0:02:44: What’s your background?
      • 0:04:26: What triggered this study?
      • 0:06:08: How did you test this theory?
      • 0:09:25: How prevalent is this practice?
      • 0:11:27: What is a “customer surplus”?
      • 0:13:44: Did the pandemic exacerbate this?
      • 0:15:08: Is this practice legal?
      • 0:21:42: How do ESL’s work?
      • 0:25:52: Are all the add-on fees legit?
      • 0:28:01: Are the stores participating in this, too?
      • 0:32:01: What do they learn from loyalty programs?
      • 0:37:38: Are digital coupons dynamic, too?
      • 0:41:07: Does this amount to price fixing?
      • 0:44:21: What’s been the reaction to your report?
      • 0:49:00: What will you study next?
      • 0:53:04: What can we do about this?
      • 0:58:39: How can we support your work?
      • 1:00:39: Wrap-up
      • 1:03:27: Patron podcast preview
      • ...more
        View all episodesView all episodes
        Download on the App Store

        Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons PodcastBy Carey Parker

        • 4.9
        • 4.9
        • 4.9
        • 4.9
        • 4.9

        4.9

        64 ratings


        More shows like Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons Podcast

        View all
        Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

        Hidden Brain

        43,687 Listeners

        Global News Podcast by BBC World Service

        Global News Podcast

        7,913 Listeners

        Hacked by Hacked

        Hacked

        187 Listeners

        This Week in Tech (Audio) by TWiT

        This Week in Tech (Audio)

        3,059 Listeners

        Security Now (Audio) by TWiT

        Security Now (Audio)

        2,011 Listeners

        The Daily by The New York Times

        The Daily

        113,121 Listeners

        Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider

        Darknet Diaries

        8,077 Listeners

        FT News Briefing by Financial Times

        FT News Briefing

        684 Listeners

        Techlore Surveillance Report by Techlore

        Techlore Surveillance Report

        110 Listeners

        Hard Fork by The New York Times

        Hard Fork

        5,576 Listeners

        The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

        The Ezra Klein Show

        16,525 Listeners

        Closed Network Privacy Podcast by Simon Walsh

        Closed Network Privacy Podcast

        20 Listeners

        Watchman Privacy by Gabriel Custodiet

        Watchman Privacy

        75 Listeners

        The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart by Comedy Central

        The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

        11,013 Listeners

        The 404 Media Podcast by 404 Media

        The 404 Media Podcast

        398 Listeners