THE CASE: Surveillance Pricing -- Who's Setting the Price, Who's Being Watched, and Who's Really Paying

You scan your loyalty card. You earn your points. You think you're getting rewarded. But what if the more loyal you become, the higher prices you're paying?

In this episode, hosts Brian Crowley and Eve Eden investigate surveillance pricing with Stephanie T. Nguyen, former Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission and Senior Fellow at Columbia Law School. Stephanie led the FTC's first Office of Technology, spearheaded the agency's surveillance pricing study, and co-authored "The Loyalty Trap" -- exposing how loyalty programs exploit consumers through three stages: the Hook, the Hack, and the Hike.

WHAT WE INVESTIGATE:

The FTC Study -- How the agency used its special 6B research authority to compel companies to reveal how they use personal data and algorithms to charge different people different prices. Over 250 clients. Prices changing in minutes. Mouse movements, scroll behavior, and geolocation all feeding the machine.

The Live Experiment -- Brian and Eve pull up Target.com simultaneously from Chicago and Nashville and discover different prices for the same products. They do the same with airline flights and find the same result.

The Loyalty Trap -- How Starbucks showed fewer coupons to its most loyal customers. How McDonald's relaunched Monopoly requiring the app. How loyalty programs evolved from S&H stamps into data harvesting machines.

The Invisible Design -- How UX practitioners play a critical role in making surveillance pricing invisible. Dark patterns, degraded price comparisons, contextual justification, and why Target rescinded its price match guarantee.

The Big Questions -- Should companies hire external UX teams for consumer protection? Should UX designers be licensed like doctors and lawyers?

SOURCES REFERENCED:

• "The Loyalty Trap" -- Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator (Nguyen & Levine) - https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-URL/wp-content/uploads/sites/412/2025/10/17195957/The-Loyalty-Trap.pdf
• "Loyalty programs track you so the store can charge you more" -- Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/
• FTC Surveillance Pricing Study (Jan. 2025) - https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer
• "Tech Brief: Airplane Response" -- Georgetown Law - https://www.law.georgetown.edu/tech-institute/insights/tech-brief-airplane-response-2/
• "The Next Frontier of Surveillance" -- Yale Journal on Regulation - https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-next-frontier-of-surveillance-investigating-pricing-systems-by-stephanie-t-nguyen/
• "The Price of Surveillance" -- Yale Journal on Regulation - https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-price-of-surveillance-the-parallel-evolution-of-targeted-ads-to-targeted-prices-by-stephanie-t-nguyen/

GUEST: Stephanie T. Nguyen -- Former Chief Technologist, FTC. Senior Fellow, Columbia Law School. Co-author, "The Loyalty Trap." Previously: White House (USDS), MIT Media Lab, Consumer Reports.

HOSTS: Brian J. Crowley -- Senior UX Design Leader, Lead Instructor UW-Madison. CrowleyUX.com Eve Eden -- [Add bio]

CORRECTIONS: [None at time of publishing]

Have questions or corrections? Email: [email protected] Follow: @uxmurdermystery

UX Murder Mystery is a joint production of EVE user experience design agency and CrowleyUX, where systems meet stories.

Music by Nicolas Lee Edited by Kelsey Smith Intro Animation by Brian J. Crowley

Copyright 2025 Brian J. Crowley and Eve Eden

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