The U.S. regulator considers that displaying a price as fixed when it varies according to the customer's profile is a misleading practice within the meaning of the FTC Act.
On August 19, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission submitted for public comment a draft enforcement policy statement addressing personalized pricing, which is the use of personal data to set a price based on what a given consumer is deemed willing to pay. The text is the most explicit federal formulation to date on how existing consumer law applies to these practices made common by machine learning.
Two angles of attack
The FTC's reasoning is based on an expectation: consumers assume that the price displayed is the price offered to everyone for the same product. A merchant who presents or implies that a price is fixed when it varies individually is liable to be classified as a deceptive practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Second, separate angle: the undisclosed collection or use of personal data for the sole purpose of personalizing a price could constitute both an unfair and a deceptive practice.
The commission acknowledges that it does not have the legal jurisdiction to prohibit personalized pricing in all circumstances. Its position therefore focuses on informing the consumer: it is the silence on the use of data that triggers the infringement, not the price differentiation itself. The public will have thirty days to file its comments from the publication in the Federal Register.
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