Your zip code or computer type can determine what you pay for groceries, deliveries, and services

Companies have been charging consumers different prices based on their location and what kind of lifestyle they lead.

Price fixing is illegal, but bulking customers into regions or basic categories isn’t.

‘They pushed back and said it wasn’t discrimination.’

After an investigation into how McDonald’s prices its Big Macs, for example, by the region where a restaurant is located, questions quickly arose as to whether or not companies were using AI algorithms to determine how much money customers are willing to shell out for any given food product or service.

Although McDonald’s said that “AI does not set the price of a Big Mac or ⁠any other menu item,” it seems it doesn’t need to.

According to author Sarah Westall, sophisticated data sweeps figure out prices based on region and