Given how freely we give away our personal data to the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon etc. it was inevitable that this pool of data would be leveraged to determine what price customers can be charged for a product or service, however there are downside risks to the business if customers discover that other customers are changed less for the same product or service. Some high profile businesses such as Amazon already use this technique rather successfully. Even Google’s search engine is tailored to return personalised search results, which makes conducting objective research much more difficult.
What Qantas have discussed in the article about using the data to personalise their service with pricing appropriately adjusted, to me, is far more palatable.