Google has firmly rejected allegations from a prominent consumer advocate that its forthcoming Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for AI-powered shopping agents could enable data-driven overcharging. The claims, sparked by a viral social media post, have ignited debate over privacy and pricing in the era of artificial intelligence.
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, warned that the protocol integrates shopping into Google’s AI tools like Search and Gemini, potentially using chat data for ‘personalised upselling’ to inflate prices. The tech giant, however, insists the features are designed to enhance user choice and value, not exploitation.
Here’s some documentation: https://developers.googleblog.com/under-the-hood-universal-commerce-protocol-ucp/
What this does is if offers a API for agents to communicate with online stores: check products, apply coupons, process transactions and so on. And the critics say that this will be used to funnel more data about the user to the store so it can “adjust” prices. Which is nothing new. Companies already are using all the data they can get their hands on to screw you. If you’re naive enough to give data about to you AI bot controlled by a corporation and then send this bot to a store controlled by another corporation to do shopping for you then yeah, you will be screwed.