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πŸ“Ί How I Tricked Big Tech’s AI Pricing Algorithms to Save $8,793 (www.youtube.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Most of the things you interact with online are tracking your location, your device type, and your digital footprint to predict exactly how desperate you are to buy something. If the algorithm thinks you have money, or simply lack options, it alters the price in real-time.

To prove how widespread "surveillance pricing" has become, I decided to see if I could outsmart it. This involved exploiting corporate registry loopholes to create a fake corporate entity, hiring an improv actor off Craigslist to establish a completely separate digital identity, and strapping a burner phone to a drone to make purchases from the airspace above the wealthiest gated community in Minnesota.

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[–] 20 points 3 months ago (10 children)

I live in Minnesota and use GrapheneOS with IronFox and uBlock, NoScript, and Privacy Badger. My desktop is Debian with librewolf and the same extensions.

I decided to check Spam prices at various Targets on both my phone and desktop. I don't typically shop at Target, though I do have an account with them but I haven't logged in in years. I was also not logged in for the testing.

I tried at my local Target and a few around the cities and got the same prices regardless of being on mobile or desktop. Only difference was between stores with prices ranging between $4.69 and $5.59.

I did not physically go anywhere different during this test, nor did I use a VPN, so that may have been why I was getting the same prices on both devices. I also really don't know how much Target actually knows about me other than my IP and that I block stuff.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    I recently learned about fingerprinting.

    https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah that's why I use what I use. I've checked that before and as long as I have JS disabled I'm at 1/1134 which is a pretty good score. Although sometimes you have to unblock sites to get them to work, so Β―\(ツ)/Β―. Although at least webgl can be blocked separately.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago*

    It's a mixed bag really. Disabling JavaScript thwarts a lot of tracking efforts. But at the same time it puts you into a very small niche of users that, combined with other data points (user agent, IP location) makes you pretty fingerprintable.

    Coming from a fellow JS Disabler, mind you.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Did you try checking while using data on your phone?

    Using different network might give varying results.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    I did but I didn't think about it until later so I didn't check as many stores. I tried it in a new incognito instance to avoid tracking cookies and etc, but I still got the same prices as with wifi. Although at that point they could have already identified me in some way, perhaps looking up only spam and blocking JS* makes me unique enough to identify.

    * I did have to unblock the bare minimum needed to see the spam prices, so it's possible that could have allowed them to track me better as well.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago

    Same, I'm also in a bunch of deals and sales channels.. Sometimes you can find great things. Most differences in pricing comes from franchise/corporate pricing and slight price variations.. The price of milk, eggs and soda, etc will be slightly different in NC and CA because of cost of living, taxes, and competition.

    Now would I be surprised if mega corporations started a system where they varied price based on what they think they can get out of each person? No I wouldn't. Do I think they're looking at all that big data while twirling their mustaches and rubbing their hands together? Yeah I do, greedy little pricks. I just don't think we're there yet.

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