The FTC has given nine companies, Delta and Walmart among them, 45 days to say whether your data sets your price

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered nine companies to hand over, within 45 days, a sworn account of whether they use personal data to charge different people different prices. The nine are Delta, United, JetBlue, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart. The Commission voted 2-0 on October 28, 2026 to issue the orders.

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The same orders ask a second question aimed at the other side of the app: whether personal data also shapes what gig workers are paid. Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said consumers deserve to know whether companies use their web surfing habits or other personal data, and that workers deserve to know if their compensation is affected by how companies use that data.

Nine recipients, split across three kinds of business

The list covers three airlines (Delta, United and JetBlue), two ride-hailing platforms (Uber and Lyft), two delivery services (DoorDash and Instacart) and two big retailers (Target and Walmart). The FTC’s announcement frames the airlines as employers with transparent salaries or hourly wages, and ride-hail and delivery platforms as businesses where pay can shift according to opaque formulas. The release adds that a worker’s pay could be personalized using data such as phone usage or how that worker responded to past offers, and it describes those as concerns rather than findings.

No company is accused of anything. The orders are a Section 6(b) study, a tool that lets the Commission demand information without a specific law-enforcement purpose. If a company does not comply, the FTC can go to federal court to compel it, and the release describes the exercise as a study of practices rather than a case against any named firm.

What the 23 specifications actually demand

The text of the special order is more concrete than the press release. It runs to 23 specifications and defines “Methodology” as any formula, algorithm, model or rule set that determines pricing, how workers are matched to jobs, or compensation using one or more inputs. It defines personal information broadly enough to include location, device data, browsing and purchase history, financial and income information, and inferred data such as a customer’s willingness to pay or a worker’s willingness to accept a job.

For every pricing method that uses personal data, a company has to describe who it applies to, which inputs it takes, how it handles missing values and when a human can override the output. Companies must also report sales counts and revenue by product and method, say how consumer requests are prioritized, explain how a worker’s offers are ordered and which jobs are hidden from a worker, and report how pricing affects pay and how revenue is split between worker and company. Other items ask for every internal A/B test and study, the exact wording and web addresses of disclosures given to customers and workers, and where each data source came from, including whether it was shared or sold to third parties.

The reporting period starts January 1, 2023 and runs through full compliance, with the studies item reaching back to January 1, 2021. Confidential submissions are generally reported only in aggregate or anonymized form, and a company receives ten days’ notice before any confidential submission is disclosed.

The clock: 14 days to talk, 45 to answer

The 45 days run from the date a company is served, not from the October 28 vote, so recipients will not all hit the same date. The order sets an earlier checkpoint: within 14 days of service, each company must contact FTC staff to schedule a meet-and-confer and say whether all responsive information is in its possession, custody or control. Anything it cannot answer has to be identified, along with who holds the data. Staff names for the conference appear in the order itself.

The Commission resolution that authorizes the compulsory process and the cover letter are published alongside the release, and the file number, P246202, is the same one used for an earlier study. That study, launched in 2024, examined the middlemen consultancies that sell pricing tools. The FTC says it left the agency without information on the actual pricing decisions of the companies that set prices, which is the gap the new orders are meant to close. In August the Commission also invited public comment on a proposed enforcement policy statement about undisclosed use of personal information to set individualized prices.

A study that Ferguson once said was not enforcement

Ferguson’s own record is relevant. When that first study began in July 2024, he was a commissioner, and his concurring statement said that “These orders are not an enforcement action” and that Congress and the public “should be made aware of whether and how consumers’ private data may be used to affect their pocketbooks.” He also warned that even lawful personalized pricing may be seen as unfair or even manipulative. Two years later, as chairman, he is directing the same inquiry at the companies themselves.

What happens after the reports arrive is unresolved. A 6(b) study ends in a report, and the recipients’ answers are protected by the confidentiality terms in the order. Whether any of the nine is shown to price by person, and whether the FTC follows with an enforcement action instead of a staff report, will not be known until the responses come in during December and the Commission decides what to publish.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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