Corporations Are Using Your Data Against You — Here's How to Fight Back

The New Science of Charging You More

Every time you open a travel app, scroll through a grocery delivery service, or browse for a hotel room, there's a good chance the price you see isn't the price someone else sees. That's not an accident. It's a strategy — and it's becoming more sophisticated by the day.

Lindsay Owens, head of the consumer advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative, puts it bluntly: "What we're seeing is Big Tech reinventing the rip-off. These are old tricks, but they've been supercharged by new technologies." Owens is the author of a new book published in September, Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — And What That Means for Your Wallet, which uncovers pricing schemes that corporations try to hide and shares advice on how to protect yourself.

According to Owens, "the most egregious" tactic is personalized pricing — where retailers "collect data on you to better ascertain how much they can charge you," using your browsing data, demographics, and purchase history. Hotels are creating prices based on a customer's geo-location, airlines are using browsing data to determine the cost of airfare, and grocery stores are using technology to test out how much they can charge customers. Some companies have even taken it a step further: some retailers are removing price tags altogether, which, as Owens notes, "creates a lot of uncertainty for people on a budget."

Four Ways to Protect Your Wallet

The good news is that consumers aren't powerless. Owens lays out concrete steps anyone can take to make it harder for companies to profile and overcharge them.

First, clear your browsing data and cookies regularly. Companies collect data while you browse online, and as Owens explains, "if you can clear that data before you make a purchase, then that data isn't available to the company to use against you." Second, go through your devices and limit the permissions you grant to apps — do your apps really need to know your location, and can you turn off inter-app sharing so one app isn't passing data to another?

Third, consider using a VPN to hide your location, which may be used to charge you more — and you can even run your own pricing experiments by changing your virtual location. Owens suggests checking whether you can get a more competitive price "coming from a different space," like the San Francisco Bay Area versus Nashville, Tennessee, for example. Fourth, if possible, shop at local, mom-and-pop stores. For services, try the old-fashioned approach — get a cab instead of a ride-share app, or call your local restaurant and pick up your food instead of using a delivery app.

Don't Fall for the App Trap

Some retailers offer perks and discounts to customers who shop through their app or website — but those incentives are not worth it, Owens says. The convenience of a loyalty discount is often a trade-off that costs you more in the long run, as the data you hand over allows companies to fine-tune exactly how much they can squeeze from you in the future. For smaller purchases like a pair of shoes, not every protective technique may be worth the effort — but for expensive flights or other travel, it's a different story.

Retailers also use marketing techniques to get you to spend more, like creating a false sense of urgency or artificial discounts — tricks designed to make you act before you think. Recognizing these tactics for what they are is itself a form of defense.

States Are Starting to Push Back

Some states are beginning to ban personalized pricing. On October 1, a new law goes into effect in Maryland banning the use of personalized or dynamic pricing at grocery stores and third-party delivery services. Other states are considering similar bans. It's a sign that lawmakers are beginning to catch up with practices that have quietly reshaped how Americans shop.

For now, though, the burden falls largely on individual consumers. The companies tracking your clicks, your location, and your purchase history are not going to stop on their own. But armed with the right habits — clearing cookies, locking down app permissions, using a VPN for big purchases, and bypassing apps when possible — shoppers can start leveling a playing field that has been tilted against them for years.