Shops both on and offline have a lot of information on us, no-one would argue with that. Loyalty cards store our shopping preferences, and virtual shopping baskets and wishlists are digital records of our past and potential future purchases. They know how much we’re prepared to spend on certain items, our preferred brands, our favoured method of payment, and when we’re most likely to splash the cash. Factor in the increasing marketability of Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter mentions, and it’s no surprise that a computer is able to make a more fitting gift suggestion for you than your other half.

Ramping up this Orwellian reality is a proposed 2012 ‘trend’ set to completely revolutionise (for better or worse) the F-commerce landscape: behavioural pricing, the idea that through analysis of your on- (and off-) line shopping habits, brands and companies can determine exactly how much they can get away with charging you for a product.

Scare-mongering UK tabloid the Daily Mail has gotten wind of this, and is purporting a range of startling conspiracy theories, noting that “The idea has already started raising privacy alarm bells”, and quoting Alex Gannett, founder of CampusSplash: “This year will mark the end of static pricing. The use of your tweets, credit score, and web history in e-commerce pricing is frightening – but ultimately unavoidable.”

Yet behavioural pricing has existed (albeit in more simple forms) for hundreds of years: physical stores will alter their prices based on the demographic of its patrons; seasonal items are priced according to demand, and sales and offers are designed to appeal to certain markets.

In the Daily Mail article, Gannett describes behavioural pricing as a “consumer’s worst nightmare, a merchant’s dream”. Well of course it’s a merchant’s dream – social networks offer brands phenomenally-detailed insight into the wallets of their customers – but is ‘worst nightmare’ a little strong? Could your personal data really work against you in such a fiendish fashion?

No. It is likely that companies will try to capitalise on the behavioural pricing bandwagon – making money is their end goal, obviously – but the existence of hundreds of price comparison sites, coupled with many brands pushing the ‘lower price/more sales’ mantra means that the idea that consumers will be forced into paying higher prices, because of a single Facebook ‘like’, is absurd.

After all, these scare stories work on the assumption that online shoppers are simply heteronomous droids. The reality is that consumers perpetuate the F-commerce machine, and if they feel they’re being cheated they’ll simply go elsewhere.