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August 7, 2025 44 mins

Delta Air Lines recently came under fire for announcing that artificial intelligence will be setting 20 percent of its ticket prices for its domestic flights by 2026. While Delta subsequently denied using the tech to engage in “personalized” price gouging, many airlines, big businesses, and data brokers have allegedly been dabbling in “surveillance pricing,” the growing corporate practice that exploits personal data to charge customers the most they’re willing to pay.

In this episode of Lever Time, David Sirota talks to Lee Hepner, antitrust expert at the American Economic Liberties Project, to learn how companies are tracking our online and offline behavior to deliver personalized (and potentially higher) price tags. As Hepner reveals, corporate entities have been quietly fine-tuning the practice for decades — and we’re now entering an era of one person, one price.

Click here to read The Lever’s investigation into how airlines pioneered  "personalized pricing."

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