On October 28, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission ordered nine companies to explain how personal information affects the prices they charge and the compensation they offer workers. The recipients are Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target, and Walmart.
The FTC’s announcement identifies a specific question: do companies use information about individual consumers to estimate the highest price each will pay? For gig workers, the corresponding concern is whether personal information influences what they are offered for their work.
The FTC is looking to understand to what extent a price changed because demand has increased, or because a company believes this particular customer will pay more.
The FTC Is Requiring Companies to Explain the Calculation
The published order template asks for the methodologies, inputs, calculation steps, treatment of missing information, and circumstances permitting overrides. It also requests testing, research, disclosures, supporting documents, and retention policies.
These requests connect the information collected with the decision produced. Identifying a category of data is only the beginning. Explaining how that data changes a price reveals its economic function.
Missing information offers a useful example. A system might have extensive history for a returning customer and none for a new customer. The treatment of that gap can affect the offer. An explanation of the normal calculation would leave part of the process unexplained if it omitted the fallback.
Overrides raise a different question. If staff can change a calculated price, understanding the final offer requires understanding both the automated calculation and the circumstances in which people replace it.
The order reaches beyond what it calls “super intelligence.” Its definition of methodology covers any formula, algorithm, code, model, statistical or machine-learning technique, or other set of rules, and it provides that a methodology may be employed manually. The relevant issue is how the business uses information to make the decision.
Worker Earnings Also Depend on Access to Jobs
The inquiry covers job allocation as well as compensation. It asks how personal information affects which workers receive which offers, how pay is calculated, and how customer payments are divided between workers and the company. It also seeks explanations of costs and benefits.
That scope matters. Consider a hypothetical platform where two workers receive the same rate for a particular assignment, but one receives fewer offers or sees them later. Their opportunity to earn differs even though the published rate is identical.
A review limited to the pay formula would miss that difference. Following the decision from job availability through assignment and payment gives a fuller account of how the platform affects earnings.
The FTC’s announcement identifies phone usage and past acceptance of offers as examples of personal information it wants to investigate. It has not established how any recipient uses those factors.
