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The Federal Trade Commission has sent Instacart a civil investigative demand, seeking information about its AI-powered pricing tool, according to Reuters. This comes after a recently published pricing experiment study showed that the online grocery delivery app gave different users different prices for the same items from the same store location at the exact same time. Some of the testers saw prices up to 23 percent higher than what the other testers saw, though the average difference for the same list of items was around 7 percent. Those higher prices could cost customers over $1,000 more in expenses for the year. The Federal Trade Commission has a longstanding policy of not commenting on any potential or ongoing investigations, the FTC told Reuters in a statement. But, like so many Americans, we are disturbed by what we have read in the press about Instacarts alleged pricing practices.When the study came out, Instacart told Engadget that the pricing variances were caused by some of its retail partners doing limited, short-term and randomized tests to better understand consumers. Those randomized pricing tests were enabled by Instacarts AI pricing tool called Eversight developed by a company it purchased in 2022. Instacart told CNBC that much of whats been reported has mischaracterized how pricing works on its platform. The spokesperson repeated that retailers conduct pricing tests on its app and said that prices on Instacart do not change in real time, arent based on supply or demand and that it never uses personal, demographic, or user-level behavioral data to set item prices.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/the-ftc-is-reportedly-investigating-instacart-over-its-ai-pricing-tool-130000472.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
Hrvatski Telekom has turned out-of-home advertising into a search-and-rescue tool for missing pets.
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Marketing and Advertising
Earlier this year Sony sued Tencent for copyright infringement over its Light of Motiram game, calling it a "slavish clone" of Horizon Zero Dawn. Then, earlier this month, Tencent agreed to stop promoting and publicly testing the game. Now, the two companies have reached a "confidential settlement" and the case has been dismissed, according to court documents seen by The Verge. Light of Motiram has also disappeared from Steam and Epic's game stores. "SIE and Tencent are pleased to have reached a confidential resolution and will have no further public comment on this matter," Tencent's spokesperson told The Verge. When Sony first filed its lawsuit in July 2025, it said that Tencent's game appeared to copy aspects of not just Horizon Zero Dawn, but other franchise games including Horizon Forbidden West and Lego Horizon Adventures. That included the post-apocalyptic setting with humans and machines coexisting, the visual appearance of characters and even the marketing materials something Engadget certainly noticed when Tencent first announced the game. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/sony-settles-with-tencent-over-slavish-horizon-clone-120042886.html?src=rss
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Marketing and Advertising
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