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@article{190663,
        author = {Sujal Kumar Poddar},
        title = {Algorithmic Price Discrimination in Indian Ride-Hailing Platforms: Evidence, Asymmetries, and Regulatory Gaps},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {8},
        pages = {4376-4391},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=190663},
        abstract = {The rapid digitization of India's urban mobility landscape, spearheaded by platform aggregators such as Uber and Ola, has fundamentally restructured the economic relationship between service providers and consumers. While these platforms ostensibly utilize dynamic pricing mechanisms to achieve allocative efficiency by balancing real-time supply and demand, emerging empirical evidence and regulatory scrutiny suggest a divergence toward algorithmic price discrimination (APD). This paper investigates the hypothesis that Indian ride-hailing platforms leverage information asymmetries and granular user data—including device telemetry, battery status, and historical purchase behavior—to extract maximum consumer surplus through personalized pricing, rather than merely clearing the market. Furthermore, it examines the "double-blind" nature of these algorithmic systems, where both riders and drivers are subjected to opaque governance structures that obscure the nexus between fare calculations and driver compensation. By synthesizing findings from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) market studies, investigative reports, and comparative analyses of global regulatory frameworks like the European Union’s GDPR and the United States’ FTC enforcement actions, this research highlights critical gaps in India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023, and the Competition Act, 2002. The study concludes that the current ex-post regulatory approach is insufficient to address the harms of surveillance capitalism in the gig economy and proposes a shift toward ex-ante algorithmic accountability, mandated data fiduciary responsibilities, and transparency audits to safeguard consumer welfare and labor rights in the Global South.},
        keywords = {Algorithmic Price Discrimination, Dynamic Pricing, Ride-Hailing, Information Asymmetry, Competition Law, Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), Gig Economy, Surveillance Capitalism, India.},
        month = {January},
        }