How to Skip Surveillance Pricing: A Guide

Step 1: Check out the company.

Marc Daniel Sevigny, a cybersecurity professional and certified ethical hacker, suggested researching a company to see whether they embrace the “affluence discount,” wherein a company gives discounts to affluent consumers, hoping to lock in long-term customers, or the “affluence premium,” where a company figures a person on a nice phone, or in a ritzy area, has the spare cash to spend big.

This is also the time to look into whether a company’s loyalty program leads to long-term savings, or eventual price hikes. Look on message boards or use an AI tool to scan the company's pricing policies.

Step 2: Scramble the signals.

It’s hard to fully make yourself anonymous—and masking information does not guarantee lower prices. But minimizing the information sites have about you can give you peace of mind.

Here's a starter guide:

• Clear your cookies
• Use a VPN to toggle your location to a different ZIP code—perhaps one in a less populous area, or with a lower cost of living
• Use a service to mask your email address
• Install a browser extension to block third party trackers
• Browse in incognito mode (in spite of its name, it doesn’t hide everything, but it is better than nothing)
• Disable your advertising ID

Step 3: Get tricky.

If retailers are playing you, you might as well try to play them if you have the patience and time. Download competing apps to compare prices. Close the app for an hour, or three, to show you’re not desperate. Leave an item hanging in your cart, and see if a discount pops up in your inbox soon.

Close the phone and head to a store. Plug in your phone to signal that you’re not in a rush.

Step 4: Come together.

Though the current system rewards tackling surveillance alone, it doesn’t need to be this way.

Consider calling a friend and asking them what prices they are seeing (and, while you’re at it, see how they’re doing and if they want to hang out soon.) Offer to buy your neighbors the goods you’re getting a great deal on. Call your elected official to let them know this really bugs you. Post about what you’re seeing. Be a friend—and try to wring a little connection from a system that attempts to squeeze you.