Something we need to understand and perhaps undermine…

https://www.bespacific.com/how-to-beat-surveillance-pricing-before-it-bleeds-you-dry/

How to Beat Surveillance Pricing Before It Bleeds You Dry

Wired: “Consumer advocate Lindsay Owen’s new book, Gouged, traces how corporations use software—from ever-changing prices to opaque algorithms—to squeeze every penny from you… These core frustrations were what drew me to Gouged: The End of a Fair Price and What That Means for Your Wallet. Author Lindsay Owens knows what it’s like to advocate for consumers’ economic interests. She’s the CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, a DC think tank and corporate watchdog, and previously worked as an economic policy adviser in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office…. Before the launch of her book, available now, we spoke about how software has been instrumental in changing how goods are priced, and how generative AI could make existing issues worse. Owens also shared a couple of tips for readers who want to claw back a fair price.

Surveillance pricing is a technique that’s at the intersection of two things Americans hate: getting preyed on and being ripped off. It’s a colloquialism for something you might have learned about in economics class called personalized pricing. This is the idea of changing prices not based on market conditions, not based on demographic groups. In first-degree price discrimination, the company uses information about me personally to decide and estimate my willingness to pay. Importantly, willingness to pay isn’t the same thing as ability to pay. Maybe you need something urgently—you’re a mom in the middle of the night with a sick kid, and you need Tylenol on your doorstep in the morning. There are all sorts of reasons why you might be desperate.

• See also Washington Post – Here’s how to fix algorithmic pricing. In a digital era that allows prices and fees to change in an instant, some are pushing for new consumer protections.

• See also Lindsay Owens’s “Gouged” via Pluralistic – “Lindsay Owens is the executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, who have done some of the most important work on surveillance pricing (using computers to spy on you to rip you off) and algorithmic wage discrimination (using computers to spy on you and steal your wages). Today, she publishes Gouged, a comprehensive, accessible guide to this modern scourge…. Owens does important work here: sector by sector and scam by scam, she lays out how companies collude – often with the assistance of a captured and tame state – to reduce competition in order to raise prices, from groceries to rents to airline tickets. She describes how online sellers exploit their information asymmetry, their ability to both directly observe you and millions of other consumers, and to augment those observations with sensitive information purchased from the wild west of data brokers, to steer you into paying more and getting less. These schemes run the gamut from subscriptions you sign up for with a single click but can’t get shut off without canceling your credit card, to lengthy check-out processes that end with a long set of junk prices that tack another 10 or 20% onto the cost you thought you were about to pay…”

• See also CNBC – Inside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big Mac – McDonald’s pricing engine uses machine-learning algorithms to continually analyze data from millions of daily transactions across McDonald’s nearly 14,000 restaurants and generate what the company calls “the optimal price” at each location for each menu item, from Big Macs to discounted coffee for seniors.

Modern war has no fixed front. Collateral damage is the new black.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/29/estonia-blames-russia-arson-attack-drone-maker-ukraine

Estonia blames Russia for arson attack on drone maker supplying Ukraine

European and Nato leaders have expressed full support for Estonia and Ukraine after the Baltic state said an August arson attack on a drone manufacturer supplying Kyiv was an act of sabotage commissioned by Moscow’s security services.

(Related) A dry run, or “something completely different?”

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/28/g-s1-145245/britain-us-base-suspected-foiled-attack

5 men arrested near a U.S.-run base bailed as UK police probe if there's an Iran link

Five young British men arrested on explosives and terror charges near a U.S.-operated air force base in England were released on bail Monday, and counterterror detectives said they were investigating "multiple lines of inquiry," including whether there is a link to Iran.

… Britain's national news agency, PA, reported without citing sources that police had not found viable explosives.