The chair of the U.S. House Oversight Committee asked the CEOs of five major travel companies including Uber, Lyft, and Expedia on Thursday to disclose whether they have been using surveillance pricing to hike costs.
Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the committee, raised concerns in letters to companies including Booking.com and Instacart about surveillance pricing algorithms and use of highly personalized consumer data creating opportunities “for companies to weaponize personal data and pad their profit margins at the expense of providing transparency to consumers.”
Surveillance pricing refers to a strategy where companies use consumers’ personal data, like location, browsing history, and shopping habits, to set individualized, algorithmic prices.
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According to Reuters, Comer said in the letters that travel companies may utilize surveillance pricing to deploy algorithms that determine a consumer’s emotional state, purchase intent and maximum willingness to pay, and that an individualized price is tailored accordingly. He also said that Uber deployed AI-based pricing technology to offer varying prices for identical products.
Many of these companies denied allegations of using surveillance pricing. Uber said that “Fares are determined by factors like location, time, and demand, not by a customer’s individual characteristics, past behavior, or device information.”
Expedia said “it “does not increase prices based on user data or activity and does not personalize pricing based on any protected personal characteristics.” Instacart said it “does not engage and has not engaged in surveillance pricing – period. No personal, demographic, or user-level behavioral information about individuals is used by retailers to set item prices on Instacart.”
Comer’s letters seek documents by March 19 including communications detailing revenue management algorithms and their financial impact. Comer mentioned that “Often this takes place in a ‘black box’ environment where consumers do not know that personalized pricing is taking place or what information collected about them are driving prices,” in the letters. He also noted that companies use consumer data to create a “profile” based on individualized features such as “geolocation, demographics, browsing history, purchase history, device type, battery life, and even mouse clicks to assign different prices to different individuals.”
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This comes amid wider concerns about surveillance pricing, and the use of AI to set prices. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced in January a broad probe into the practice of using personal data to set individualized price.
Two dozen U.S. House Democratic lawmakers asked Delta Airlines in November 2025, to ask questions about whether it will use generative AI to help set ticket prices. They voiced concerns that airlines would use AI, personal data or consumers’ internet usage to find out where they most wanted to travel, and raise the fare for those places. Delta has said “there is no fare product Delta has ever used, is testing or plans to use that targets customers with individualized offers based on personal information or otherwise.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced in January a broad probe into the practice of using personal data to set individualized prices.