The Federal Profession Payment is proposing an enforcement policy for “individualized rates,” the use of customer data to set prices for particular consumers.

The enforcement plan was proposed on Aug. 19, 2026, and it does not look for to prohibit customized rates, which the FTC states it lacks authority to do. Instead, it seeks to use Area 5 of the FTC Act, which bans unfair or deceptive techniques.

In other words, it’s looking for more transparency around when individualized prices is utilized and how the rate was computed.

The FTC wants sellers to be clear concerning:

• The reality that a cost was personalized.
• Why was it utilized?
• What sorts of data were utilized?

What does this mean for online marketers?

On that last factor, the FTC’s call for openness consists of first-party information. For the past several years, marketing professionals were informed to reply to the decline of third-party cookies by accumulating first-party information from their consumers to create customized experiences. However in some instances, the personalization is being reached the costs for items and solutions.

For example, a merchant can take a look at a client’s past purchase background and, finding that the consumer is willing to pay even more in general, cost a particular item more than it would certainly be for various other clients. The recommended FTC policy calls for a disclaimer specifying that the rate was individualized based on their history of acquisitions.

If a company obtains information from one more firm, the FTC says it might not suffice to merely think the consumer granted its usage for prices. Companies might be responsible for validating that customers in fact granted the info being used that way.

Accomplishing the transparency the FTC wants will call for some vendors to enter a hornet’s nest that’s already a hassle to many– information governance and assimilation.

The customer data made use of to customize experiences (and possibly rates) sits in CDPs, commitment systems, personalization engines, and AI representatives. Whether merchants trust that information and can operationalize it, either for customized pricing or FTC conformity if that day comes, will certainly offer a difficulty.

“I’m working with the RMN (retail media network) and the seller a great deal, and I just do not come across many– almost none– that have the systems and the transparency and the orchestration, if you will, of executing on it,” Paul Brenner, SVP, international retail media and partnerships at In-Store Industry, told MarTech. “There’s such a delineation between information you’re permitted to utilize and not permitted to use, I’m just uncertain exactly how they’re going to perform it. That’s what I consider.”

Individualized prices vs. vibrant rates

The FTC also draws a difference between vibrant prices, which is a lot more similar to the legislations of supply and demand, and customized prices.

Dynamic pricing is made use of by airline companies and resorts, which routinely change the prices of flights and spaces. Rideshare applications use vibrant pricing during durations of height use, like rush hour or a rainy day.

The FTC presumed in its proposed policy to consist of examples of when individualized pricing must be inspected. Those consist of:

• Consumers who can’t quickly leave home to buy food.
• Consumers buying milk for a number of kids.
• Customers taking a trip as a result of a funeral service or urgent commitment.
• Consumers need transport throughout a medical emergency.
• Customers that were just recently targets of criminal activity and are shopping for a security video camera.
• Customers surfing a store’s site while standing in that merchant’s store or car park.

With its examples, the FTC seems to be advising marketing professionals that, while they presently accumulate a great deal of information, they don’t understand everything.

The recommended FTC policy is open for public remark till Sept. 25, 2026