Is this true? "The McDonald’s-backed company Plexure sells surveillance data on you to vendors, who use it to raise the price of items when they think you’ll pay more."
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Executive summary
The headline mixes two related truths and one unproven leap: Plexure — the mobile-engagement firm that runs the McDonald’s app and in which McDonald’s holds a stake — does collect and combine detailed app and behavioral data to deliver highly personalized offers aimed at changing how and what people buy [1]. Regulators and consumer groups are rightly alarmed that that kind of data and technology can enable “surveillance pricing,” but the available reporting does not show direct, documented proof that Plexure is systematically selling individual-level surveillance data to vendors whose explicit business model is to raise prices for people deemed willing to pay more [2] [3].
1. What the reporting shows Plexure actually does — personalized engagement, not publicly documented price-gouging
Investigations and trade reporting make clear that Plexure specializes in “personalized mobile engagement,” powering apps (including McDonald’s) that push targeted deals, track in-app behavior and stitch that with other data to drive order frequency and size — metrics the company highlights in sales materials and which help clients design offers like deep discounts to bring users into an app ecosystem [1]. Those materials and independent write-ups describe the mechanics of using cheap, targeted offers to hook customers and then increase spend; they do not, however, provide a smoking-gun showing that Plexure sells raw personal dossiers to third parties who then lift prices on those same individuals [1].
2. Why people equate this work with “selling surveillance data” — the data flows and incentives are real
Plexure’s model rests on aggregating many customer interactions — reporting cites “300 million customer interactions” across client apps — and promises measurable uplifts in orders and basket size, an economic incentive for clients to exploit customer-level signals to maximize revenue [1]. That aggregated capability sits at the center of broader alarm about “surveillance pricing,” where intermediaries or platforms use location, browsing, purchase history and other signals to deploy different prices or offers to different people; the FTC has opened inquiries into surveillance-pricing intermediaries precisely because the underlying data economy makes such differential pricing feasible and opaque [2].
3. What regulators and advocates say — surveillance pricing is a documented risk even if specifics are opaque
The Federal Trade Commission issued orders to eight companies to better understand how third-party intermediaries use consumer data to set targeted prices and highlighted the possibility that firms could be exploiting personal information to charge higher prices to some consumers [2]. Consumer Watchdog and privacy groups also document cases and call for legal prohibitions on “surveillance price gouging,” arguing that the practice weaponizes consumers’ own data and urging transparency and the right to a “standard price” if personal data are used in pricing [3].
4. Where the claim overreaches — absence of direct evidence that Plexure “sells surveillance data” to raise prices
None of the provided sources proves that Plexure runs a business of selling personal-level surveillance data specifically for the purpose of enabling vendors to raise prices on individuals; the available reporting shows targeted deals and the ability to “magnify tiny price shifts into real money,” but concrete examples of Plexure enabling higher personalized prices rather than targeted discounts or engagement strategies are not documented in these sources [1]. That gap matters: personalized offers can mean both cheaper individualized deals to spur purchases and, in theory, pricier individualized charges — the evidence in hand documents the former more clearly than the latter.
5. The takeaway and the open questions regulators want answered
It is accurate to say Plexure collects and leverages detailed app and behavioral data to serve tailored offers for clients, and it is plausible — and of regulatory concern — that such data pipelines could be used to implement surveillance pricing [1] [2]. It is not supported by the cited reporting to assert definitively that Plexure is selling surveillance data to vendors who then use it to raise prices on targeted individuals; that specific claim remains unproven in the provided sources and is precisely the kind of opaque practice federal probes are trying to uncover [2] [3].