Senate candidate shares plan to stop big tech companies from taking advantage of customers via dynamic pricing

One Senate candidate is shining a light on a little-known, but important, issue facing American consumers: surveillance pricing.

What's happening?

Mallory McMorrow, Michigan's current Senate Majority Whip and candidate for U.S. Senate, is exposing a trend tech companies are using to unfairly raise prices.

The cost of your flight went up because you searched for it twice. Your rideshare costs more because your phone battery is dying.

This is surveillance pricing – corporations using your own data and behaviors against you.

In the US Senate, I've got a plan to ban it. pic.twitter.com/xCRDZmmpIX

— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) March 27, 2026

In a 97-second video released on X, the senate candidate explained that "companies are using algorithmic pricing tools to study your personal data and charge you exactly what they'll think you'll pay … companies can charge you completely different prices for the exact same thing."

Surveillance pricing uses AI alongside personal factors like your search history, location, and even your phone's remaining battery life to alter what you'd be charged for goods and services.

McMorrow explained surveillance pricing with an upsetting hypothetical: Ridesharing companies can nearly double the cost of your ride if your phone battery is at 20% or lower, taking advantage of your need for quick service. 

In another example, she stated that airlines can significantly raise prices if they've seen that you searched for a flight more than once.

Why is surveillance pricing concerning?

Companies and employers shouldn't be, as McMorrow put it, "using your own data and behaviors against you."

Beyond invading our personal privacy and subjecting us to unfair prices, surveillance pricing has the potential to harm us in other ways. 

McMorrow claimed that its use in determining workers' wages is especially unfair, highlighting the nursing field as one especially egregious example, leading to worse patient outcomes. 

What's being done about surveillance pricing?

As part of a campaign promise, McMorrow stated that, if elected, she would introduce legislation to end surveillance pricing. Specifically, McMorrow promised to try to ban personalized prices, protect gig workers, and prevent surveillance pricing from raising rents and insurance costs.

But despite what one political candidate promises, it's clear that more protections are needed to ensure tech companies can't abuse American consumers with surveillance pricing, even if you forgot to charge your phone.

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