Today, the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into surveillance pricing, ordering information from eight companies on the practice in a 5-0 vote. The orders were sent to Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co. Groundwork’s Executive Director Lindsay Owens applauded the action in the following statement:

“Surveillance pricing isn’t new, but new technologies like better data collection and smarter algorithms are turbocharging it and costing Americans a small fortune.

“Today’s investigation is an important step in cracking down on the methods big corporations use to spy on consumers to rip them off.”

This post was originally published on Common Dreams.