Seattle’s City Council voted 7-2 on September 22 to prohibit certain grocery pricing practices that use personal information to decide what customers pay. Consumer Reports supported the measure and helped the mayor’s office develop it.
The concept of “surveillance pricing” is straightforward. A company finds out about you, uses that information in a price-setting system, and adjusts the prices you see. In January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission revealed the existence of methods capable of accessing information from browsing history, exact location, and even the way the user’s mouse moves or items in the user’s online cart.
Shopping surveillance isn’t new.
Trending: New York Magazine gets TORCHED for putting Elliot Page on the cover of its debut ‘men’s style’ issue
Imagine doing some last-minute dinner shopping while a system tries to estimate how much extra you’ll tolerate paying because it’s close to dinner time. Or the system
Continue reading
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!