{"id":149,"date":"2023-03-10T16:48:04","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T16:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/?page_id=149"},"modified":"2023-12-15T12:25:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T12:25:22","slug":"empowering-personalized-prices","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/?page_id=149","title":{"rendered":"Empowering Personalized Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Informing Consumers to Support a Fair and
Sustainable Digital Transition<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n\n\n

Price personalization \u2013 the act of using a possible customer\u2019s characteristics to tailor the seller\u2019s approach, with the objective of raising the possibility of making a sale \u2013 has always been around. Such practice, which can be divided into price discrimination (which tailors the price of the product according to the customer\u2019s willingness to pay for it) and price steering (which tailors the products shown to the customer according to what they are most likely to buy), has, however, reached a new level in the modern world, specifically relating to e-commerce.

This is mostly due to a rise in the amount of data available to collect and process, accompanied by the advanced technology to do so. In fact, almost every person in the world has at least one device that they use to connect to the Internet \u2013 and, consequently, that shares information such as their location, name, e-mail address, browser, and search history, etc. Although such information might not be breaking news, as the use of \u201ccookies\u201d \u2013 files that record users\u2019 data, as well as their personal settings and interactions with a specific website \u2013 has been pretty much normalized, what the average consumer doesn\u2019t know is that their data might be processed by companies to create a \u201ccustomer profile\u201d, used to identify them in seconds and, consequently, adjust what they are being shown. 

These practices are generally legal, if the collection and processing of personal data is carried out according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted by the European Union. According to this legislation, users must be informed that their data is being collected, to what extent and for what purpose, in order to express their consent to such activities \u2013 which is, for example, when websites ask the user to \u201caccept\u201d the cookies being used.

However, studies conclude that, although legal, this practice raises questions regarding the ethics involved. For example, according to a survey conducted in the US in 2016, 72% of the participants considered that price discrimination should be prohibited; while more than 80% thought that it was, at least, unfair. Therefore, it can be concluded that people generally do not feel comfortable buying on a website that states the practice of price personalization which makes websites only warn users that their personal information is being handled and retained by the website, but not that such information could be influencing the prices and ordering of products presented \u2013 which, in turn, causes legal problems regarding their informed consent.

This is the main motive for this investigation. It aims, through extensive research and analysis, to provide information and proof of these practices, so that the asymmetry of information between the seller and the consumer can be less prominent, while also raising the need for further regulation in protecting consumers and their fundamental rights.
An initial approach towards this concept was made with the project \u201cScraping the Web for Evidence of Price Personalization\u201d, where some signs of price personalization were already found \u2013 which only further justifies more research.
In the year of 2023, professor Fabrizio Esposito conducted and coordenated research on data-driven commercial practices, focusing in particular on \u201cDigital vulnerability and EU law\u201d, \u201cHyper-involvement mechanisms and EU law\u201d and \u201cPersonalised Pricing: Detection and Enforcetech\u201d. He has also been involved in the project \u201cPersonalised pricing: Cambridge Handbook\u201d, which aims to publish a handbook regarding \u201cAlgorithmic Price Personalisation and the Law\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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gO BACK<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Informing Consumers to Support a Fair and Sustainable Digital Transition Price personalization \u2013 the act of using a possible customer\u2019s characteristics to tailor the seller\u2019s approach, with the objective of raising the possibility of making a sale \u2013 has always been around. Such practice, which can be divided into price discrimination (which tailors the price […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":562,"parent":19,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-149","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":783,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions\/783"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/datadriven.novalaw.unl.pt\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}