Drew Ambrogi

237 posts

Drew Ambrogi

Drew Ambrogi

@DrewAmbrogi

Policy at @ProgressChamber | Algorithms, AVs, AI | Anti-doom

Washington, DC Katılım Nisan 2015
866 Takip Edilen799 Takipçiler
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
The "surveillance pricing" narrative doesn't really add up. It's exciting, but sloppy. I've been following algorithmic pricing for a while and I think it's worth pointing out what gets lost in this oversimplified story. 🧵
Ronan Farrow@RonanFarrow

Since so many of you responded to my thread about surveillance pricing—here's a full breakdown, with visuals, on how companies use your personal data to manipulate prices in real-time:

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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Maybe it’s just me, but telling consumers that a basic pricing algorithm or a Safeway Club Card uses enough compute to strain the power grid and drain the water supply seems wildly misleading.
Drew Ambrogi tweet media
American Economic Liberties Project@econliberties

NEW: Focus group research finds Americans overwhelmingly oppose surveillance pricing. Participants describe the practice as discriminatory and manipulative, tying it to rising costs and growing corporate power. Here's some of the key findings👇

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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
If Democrats are going to keep prioritizing this issue, gathering information is a reasonable place to start. But they need to use what they learn to identify narrow, documented harms. If the goal is affordability, policymakers should be careful not to restrict the tools businesses use to compete on price. Rules aimed at stopping abuse should not make it harder to offer discounts.
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
We're seeing the same kind of scope creep in state legislative fights. The “surveillance pricing” narrative has expanded from concern about secret individualized markups into a broader effort to control how prices are set and how companies compete for customers. progresschamber.org/insights/surve…
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Per POLITICO, Rep. Frank Pallone is out with letters to major retailers asking about “surveillance pricing.” The letters shows Dems continuing to elevate algorithmic pricing as an issue they think will win with voters ahead of the midterms. But they also show the core risk in this debate: concern about "surveillance pricing" can quickly become an overbroad effort to regulate how companies use discounts, data, and pricing tools to compete for customers.
Drew Ambrogi tweet media
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Adam Thierer
Adam Thierer@AdamThierer·
a patchwork of misguided price restrictions is popping up across the nation (40+ proposed laws now) based on panic about algorithmic pricing. In today's @PostOpinions, @BrianCAlbrecht offers some basic facts to counter the growing hysteria. 👉
Adam Thierer tweet mediaAdam Thierer tweet media
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Drew Ambrogi retweetledi
Brian Albrecht
Brian Albrecht@BrianCAlbrecht·
In December, there was a panic-inducing report about Instacart. Surveillance pricing! Okay, minor detail: they found no evidence of that. Flash forward 5 months, and we have our first law out of Maryland. Lo and behold, the law is also confused about dynamic pricing, predatory pricing, price discrimination, really pricing overall. My latest in @PostOpinions about what happens when panic gets ahead of clear thinking
Brian Albrecht tweet media
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
@LeeHepner Isn't this kind of a goalpost shift? "Google lets sellers charge different prices for the same good" is a long way from "Google lets advertisers segment markets to show different products/offers (including their prices) to different audiences"
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Lee Hepner
Lee Hepner@LeeHepner·
@DrewAmbrogi That's not remotely clear. The technology enables what it enables: customized ads, included pricing, targeting the same demographic targets. How does Google enforce its "dishonest pricing practices" policy?
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Seems pretty clear that what Google's talking about is product/offer segmentation (ie advertising a cheap laptop to students and a premium workstation to high-earning professionals) Try being more direct with the help guide...
Drew Ambrogi tweet media
Lee Hepner@LeeHepner

Here’s how Google enables concurrent price experiments, where companies offer different prices at the same time to the same audience. A/B price testing used to be bound by a temporal limitation. Now you have no idea if the price you’re offered is the real price at all.

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Drew Ambrogi retweetledi
Greg Rogers
Greg Rogers@AVGregR·
🧵 Will DC get autonomous vehicles in 2026 or 2027? A new AV bill from Councilmember @charlesallen is live - here's my quick analysis of the text and what it means for bringing AVs to District residents.
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Adam Kovacevich
Adam Kovacevich@adamkovac·
New from my colleague @DrewAmbrogi: The push against "surveillance pricing" borrows its moral force from a harm most companies aren’t actually committing and spends that outrage on its broader project: regulating modern discounting. But the public really likes discounts.
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Should we hold telecom accountable for facilitating the group chats? Metro accountable for getting them to navy yard? This level of scapegoating is embarrassing and doesn’t lend a lot of credibility to his argument.
Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle

Parker also wants D.C. to build dedicated teen centers across the city, starting at RFK. He's also proposing holding social media platforms accountable for facilitating the takeovers, creating an Interstate Teen Takeover Taskforce, and a Teen Takeover Prevention Unit in MPD.

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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
If you needed one tweet to show why Robert White is not a serious candidate for Congress, this would be it.
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
No one supports discriminatory price gouging. There should be a way to keep that illegal in our digital age, while also allowing individual consumers to take advantage of personalized savings.  As written, the One Fair Price Act protects loyalty programs in name only. §3(g)(ii) requires that "all members of the program receive uniform pricing benefits and discounts." But modern loyalty programs work by sending targeted offers based on what you buy and how you shop. That's what makes them valuable or shoppers and viable for businesses. We'd be happy to follow up to discuss in more words than X allows, and would welcome the opportunity to serve as a resource on a solution that preserves the discounts that matter to consumers.
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Emerita Torres (she/her)
Emerita Torres (she/her)@EmeritaTorresNY·
We all want to protect discounts and savings. But “data-driven” savings are not the same as algorithmic pricing. This poll is misleading. The One Fair Price Act protects discounts - including loyalty and membership - at their core while shielding New Yorkers from surveillance price gouging using their personal data. Supply and demand should shape prices. Your personal data used against you - income, race, clicks, even device - should not.
Chamber of Progress@ProgressChamber

New poll: 70% of New Yorkers oppose banning loyalty programs, personalized coupons, senior & student discounts. Lawmakers should reject bills that would wipe out everyday savings.

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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
@LeeHepner Appreciate the offer. If there’s research/evidence you think I’m missing, send it my way - I’m happy to check it out.
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Lee Hepner
Lee Hepner@LeeHepner·
@DrewAmbrogi If the Chamber of Progress wants to sit down and get an education on this stuff, I’m happy to walk you through it, but without some humility I have to assume you know you’re pulling the wool over on all of us.
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
It’s worth noting that the first so-called “surveillance pricing” bill in the country will look very different from what’s being pushed in other states (and from the version that was introduced earlier this year). Maryland’s legislature took a broad, imprecise bill that treated data-driven pricing as a harm in itself, and narrowed it by limiting the prohibition to using consumer data to *increase* prices above a defined baseline. This was a deliberate effort to preserve the ability for businesses to use data to compete on price by offering discounts. I’m still skeptical that this legislation is necessary, and I’m not sure it’s precise enough to avoid anti-competitive effects. But other states would be wise to follow Maryland’s lead: make sure the guardrails you build around data-driven pricing don’t interfere with its pro-competitive applications. (Not with half baked exemptions, but with core definitions.) Unfortunately there is a large group of organizations on the left (MPU among them) pushing a “surveillance pricing” narrative that’s wholly disconnected from both the evidence and the basic economics of pricing. They want to eliminate price differentiation entirely. The bad bills aren’t going away, but Maryland deserves credit for taking a more targeted approach.
More Perfect Union@MorePerfectUS

BREAKING: Maryland is about to become the first state in the nation to ban the use of surveillance data and dynamic pricing at grocery stores. The Maryland House has just passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act. Governor Wes Moore plans to sign the bill.

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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Obviously we’re not going to see eye to eye on this, but if the concern is using consumer data to identify individual willingness to pay and charge someone more on that basis, this bill addresses that. What it doesn’t do is treat all data-driven pricing as inherently suspect. We still don’t have good have evidence that “surveillance pricing” is the sweeping threat it’s being presented as. What we do know is in many contexts, these tools are being used for competitive purposes, including discounts. The bill represents a more targeted approach that I think makes more sense than banning the whole practice and then carving back favored discounts one by one.
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Drew Ambrogi
Drew Ambrogi@DrewAmbrogi·
Genuinely fascinating to see the surveillance pricing crowd go to bat over the fact that this MD bill doesn’t do enough to eliminate discounts and loyalty rewards. In this economy?
American Economic Liberties Project@econliberties

Alongside @TowardsJustice & Tech Equity Action, we are calling on @GovWesMoore to veto H.B. 895. "The Maryland legislature passed a bill purporting to solve this problem, but it has been gutted by industry-friendly definitions and gaping loopholes. It also includes a new ban on private rights of action, the ability of individual consumers to take companies to court when they are cheated, which threatens the state’s existing Consumer Protection Act."

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Keşfet

@PostOpinions @BrianCAlbrecht @AdamThierer @LeeHepner @charlesallen @elonmusk @BarackObama @taylorswift13