Last year, Delta Airlines announced that they were using surveillance pricing to determine ticket prices. Surveillance pricing is when companies use your personal data to charge you what they think you’re willing to pay rather than a standard price. Other major airlines have been quietly doing this, too. A recent Twitter exchange went viral after a JetBlue customer lamented that they were trying to buy tickets to fly to a funeral but prices had risen $230 in just one day and JB’s account told them to clear their cache and cookies or try booking in an incognito browser. Obviously, this practice is not just limited to the airline industry. In December, Instacart was caught using surveillance pricing. Last year, Biden’s FTC chair Lina Khan revealed that ride share companies charges higher rates based on users’ cell phone battery percentage. There are countless other examples.
Companies like to call this practice “personalized pricing” but it’s really price gouging, and it should be illegal. During her tenure, Khan was investigating eight companies that provided services to aid in surveillance pricing. Now that the United States is in a corruption free-for-all, it’s only gotten worse. So, Maryland’s general assembly decided to take matters into their own hands and just passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act, which bans surveillance pricing. It goes into effect on October 1.
Maryland is poised to become the first state in the country to ban “surveillance pricing.”
The practice refers to companies using a shopper’s personal data, such as browsing history, location, or purchasing behavior, to tailor prices to individual customers.
The Protection From Predatory Pricing Act, passed this month and sent to the governor for a signature, would prohibit food retailers and third-party delivery services from using the practice. Violations would be treated as deceptive trade practices under state law, with potential fines and lawsuits.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore proposed that lawmakers take up the issue during the legislative session.
“Marylanders deserve to know that the price they see on the shelf is the price they will pay at the register,” Moore said in January. “Our administration is laser-focused on protecting Marylanders from skyrocketing costs. At a time when Marylanders are already stretched by the rising cost of groceries, housing and everyday necessities, we must ensure that new technologies are not used to drive up the bill for working families.”
Consumer Reports said it engaged on the bill during the legislative process. While it called Maryland’s move to address surveillance pricing “encouraging,” it warned the final version contains “loopholes” that do not fully protect consumers.
The group pointed to exemptions, including applying the ban only to the use of personal data to set higher prices without establishing a baseline or standard price; exempting pricing tied to loyalty or membership programs, even if prices are higher; and exempting pricing linked to subscriptions or subscription-based services.
“We urge other state legislatures considering personalized pricing legislation to build in stronger consumer protections and avoid loopholes that weakened this bill,” the organization said.
Maryland’s law also bans dynamic pricing in grocery stores, like when Kroger got busted using digital price tags to adjust the cost of certain items based on factors like time of day, weather, etc. This news comes just as Walmart announced that it plans on having digital price tags in all of its stores by the end of 2026. I hope they fall under the definition of a grocery store.
This is a really great start. I hope Maryland’s lawmakers work to fix those loopholes and that they’re merely the first among many states to pass laws banning surveillance pricing. There are similar bills making their way through other Democrat-controlled states like California, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, and Illinois. I was reading a Reddit thread about this new law and a lot of commenters mentioned just how much big corporations know about us and our personal data. Whatever they can’t harvest from us, they buy from data brokers. It’s so infuriating and frustrating. I have one question for the techies out there – if I cleared my cache and set a VPN to Maryland, would companies know I’m not really there or would they have to follow the rules based on my supposed IP?
Photos credit: Gustavo Fring on Pexels, Viki Mohamad on Unsplash and Getty Images
Lina Khan was and is such a gem. Mayor Mamdani is lucky to have her.
Massachusetts has a bill to ban surveillance pricing only which….why can’t a state as liberal as ours do what Maryland is doing and ban it everywhere? MA could easily be so much better than it is and I really cannot stand our governor. She barely campaigned and was handed the governorship, will not commit to auditing the MA legislature, and has fallen short (or worse yet, not even tried) on every pathetic attempt to make our state more affordable. I really wish she would get challenged from the left because MA deserves so much better. /end rant
Funny you should mention Healey. A friend, a MA native and current resident, was visiting me last weekend and was also complaining about her. Apparently, she removed the caps on energy prices as well. I looked it up, she is being primaried by three other Democrats. Don’t know how they all compare to the current governor but she is being challenged at the very least.
Yep! Also pushing AI down our throats as she continues to invest in AI firms like an Israeli “healthcare company” (Sheba) which has ties to the IDF. I’m glad your friend sees her for who she is and who she’s always been. I have disliked her since I attended a townhall hosted by her in 2016 when she was AG and it became clear that she was against marijuana legalization. A couple years later when MA voted to legalize, she purposefully made it as difficult and complicated as possible to both open up a pot shop and to also buy weed by imposing an insane amount of restrictions. She needs to go.
I work in an industry that uses Big Data. If you want privacy, cancel your internet and cable, use a landline and pay for everything in cash. Big Data tracks every household in American and collects thousands of data points. Thanks to AI, all that data can be deployed instantly.
I KNEW IT. I’ve been feeling this way and now I know why!!!