New FTC chairman battling DEI cuts off public comments on surveillance pricing

While Lina Hahn spent much of her four years at the helm of the Federal Trade Commission fighting to break up monopolies and combat price gouging, Donald Trump’s new FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson appears to have zeroed in on a single alleged cause of all economic problems: ON. Acting Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya doesn’t think that will work in a passionate disagreement to Ferguson’s war on diversity, highlighted a number of issues the FTC is working on, but has now closed public comment.

In Per Bedoya’s statement, in which he described Ferguson as “disinterested in the challenges that ordinary human beings face,” he listed five requests for information on which the Federal Trade Commission has sought public input. This involves asking how the Commission could protecting workers from illegal business practices such as non-competition and prohibition clauses, fight against predatory pricingand help small businesses.

Perhaps most notably, Ferguson suspended comment upon request regarding surveillance pricing practicesincluding investigating how companies collect and trade people’s personal data and use that information to set different prices for products.

The practice is becoming more common, especially online, where companies have access to a wealth of user data while a person shops for goods and services. This is a practice most associated with airline tickets – for years it has been believed that airlines price change based on how often the user views a flight. But a recent FTC studypublished just before the end of the Biden administration, found the practice to be much more widespread. Hahn, the former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, warned that companies set “targeted, personalized prices for goods and services” based on everything “from a person’s location and demographics to mouse movements on a web page.”

This seems like something the FTC should look into. Alas, apparently it is no longer on the agenda. Commissioner Bedoya stated in his dissent that Ferguson’s focus on DEI is “a game to retweet X — the kind of trick that pisses off ordinary people who can’t make rent.” Of course, the path to easing the rising cost of living is increasingly pushing Americans toward debt and poverty it doesn’t look like it will pass X. But who knows, maybe if Ferguson can muster enough commitment, he can split his revenue sharing check with the American people.