Retailers Are Charging You More Based on Your Data. Here’s What You Can Do.

Ever noticed online price tags that seem suspiciously uncertain, numbers hovering ambiguously between suggestion and reality? That's surveillance pricing, the newest darling of digital commerce, where the price you see isn't so much an offer as it is a strategic guess about just how far you'll bend before your financial back breaks.

Surveillance pricing works by dissecting your online persona into a dossier of predictive behaviors. Your browsing history, geographic location, buying habits, income range, even your device; it's all vacuumed up, blended, and repurposed into a magic formula determining precisely how much you'll cough up for something you probably didn't even need.

These companies don't care whether demand is high or low. They don't care if their product is selling like hotcakes or collecting digital dust. They just care that you, personally, are willing to pay exactly $5.68 more than the other guy scrolling through the same page.

If your device costs more than a month's rent, your prices will reflect that. Shoppers logging on from shiny MacBooks or flagship smartphones are being charged accordingly, because clearly anyone who throws away four figures on aluminum-framed hardware can absorb a few extra bucks here and there. It's like walking into a store with a stack of hundred-dollar bills stapled to your forehead.

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