I'll Have What She's Having

I'll Have What She's Having

As a part of its investigation of sofware driven price gouging, the FTC has announced that they are opening up an investigation of McKinsey and Company.

My first reaction when I heard that McKinsey was going to get the Lina Khan treatment was akin to Meg Ryan's reaction in When Harry Met Sally.

McKinsey's consulting work has always been deeply corrupt and deeply corrupting, and an investigation is long overdue:

The Federal Trade Commission issued orders to eight companies offering surveillance pricing products and services that incorporate data about consumers’ characteristics and behavior. The orders seek information about the potential impact these practices have on privacy, competition, and consumer protection.

The orders are aimed at helping the FTC better understand the opaque market for products by third-party intermediaries that claim to use advanced algorithms, artificial intelligence and other technologies, along with personal information about consumers—such as their location, demographics, credit history, and browsing or shopping history—to categorize individuals and set a targeted price for a product or service. The study is aimed at helping the FTC better understand how surveillance pricing is affecting consumers, especially when the pricing is based on surveillance of an individual’s personal characteristics and behavior.

“Firms that harvest Americans’ personal data can put people’s privacy at risk. Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “Americans deserve to know whether businesses are using detailed consumer data to deploy surveillance pricing, and the FTC’s inquiry will shed light on this shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.”

The FTC is using its 6(b) authority, which authorizes the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose, to obtain information from eight firms that advertise their use of AI and other technologies along with historical and real-time customer information to target prices for individual consumers. The orders were sent to: Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture, and McKinsey & Co.

(emphasis mine)

The FTC has long been on the front lines of documenting and investigating the hidden ecosystem of data brokers, digital platforms, and other intermediaries that specialize in monitoring and selling user data. The FTC’s 6(b) orders aim to shed light on how the current data ecosystem may facilitate the ability to target consumers with individual prices.

The Commission voted 5-0 to issue the 6(b) orders to the eight companies. Commissioners Melissa Holyoak and Andrew N. Ferguson issued concurring statements.

If large companies or governments are doing evil things, McKinsey and Company is there to show them how to do evil better.

When large companies or governments are trying to do good things, McKinsey and Company is advising them and the evil doers that they are fighting at the same time.

In a just world, McKinsey and company would be ahead of the Public Relations Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to go up against the wall when the revolution comes,