In a now viral post on X viewed nearly 400,000 times, Lindsay Owens on Sunday wrote, 'Big/bad news for consumers. Google is out today with an announcement of how they plan to integrate shopping into their AI offerings including search and Gemini. The plan includes 'personalized upselling.' I.e. Analyzing your chat data and using it to overcharge you.' Owens is executive director of the consumer economics think tank Groundwork Collaborative. Her concern stems from looking at Google's roadmap, as well as delving into some of its detailed specification docs. The roadmap includes a feature that will support 'upselling,' which could help merchants promote more expensive items to AI shopping agents. She also called out Google's plans to adjust prices for programs like new-member discounts or loyalty-based pricing, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai described when he announced the new protocol at the National Retail Federation conference. In a post on X, Google responded that, 'These claims...
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