Annapolis, Maryland – Maryland’s legislature recently passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act. If signed by Governor Wes Moore, it will be the first law in the nation aimed at specifically prohibiting surveillance pricing, also known as personalized pricing. Surveillance pricing is when a store charges different shoppers different prices for the same item at the same time based on something the store knows about them as an individual.
Consumer Reports engaged on the bill—which is aimed at personalized pricing in the grocery sector—throughout the legislative process. But the final draft of H.B. 895 falls short of adequately protecting consumers. The Maryland Retail Alliance, which strongly opposed the bill when it was introduced, removed its opposition after the legislature added several exemptions.
Consumer Reports issued the following statement.
“Surveillance pricing can drive up the price of food. Retailers have a lot of data about individual shoppers; how often we search for or hover over particular items, whether we live near competitor stores, inferences about our likes and dislikes, our dietary needs, our income, our family size, and more. Surveillance pricing allows companies to take advantage of that information asymmetry and charge you as much as they think you’re individually willing to pay.” said Grace Gedye, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “While it’s encouraging to see the Maryland legislature take up this issue, this bill has loopholes that will limit its real-world impact. We urge other state legislatures considering personalized pricing legislation to build in stronger consumer protections and avoid loopholes that weakened this bill.”
Several provisions of the bill undercut its ban on surveillance pricing, including:
- Applying the ban only to using personal data to set higher prices without establishing any baseline or standard price (with no set standard price, everything can be marketed as a discount)
- Exempting any pricing associated with a loyalty or membership programs — even if the prices offered through a loyalty program are higher
- Exempting any pricing associated with purchases made on a subscription basis or in association with a subscription service
Additionally, the bill has weak enforcement provisions. Consumers are not permitted to sue companies if they’ve been subject to surveillance pricing; this is a departure from Maryland’s primary consumer protection law. Only the Maryland Attorney General can bring suits, and is required to send companies a notice that they’ve violated the law and give them 45 days to fix violations without further legal ramification.
Consumer Reports recently investigated Kroger’s consumer data practices and found that they were collecting vast data profiles for individual shoppers, with inferences about their income, family size, education level, gender, and more. One shopper who requested their data under a state privacy law received a 62-page profile.
In December 2025, CR, along with partners Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, published an investigation into Instacart’s pricing tactics. CR had nearly 400 consumers shop for the same basket of goods at the same time. Analysis of the shopping data found that consumers were paying different prices for the same products from the same store at the same time. The investigation found that Instacart’s algorithmic pricing experiments could result in price differences as high as 23% for certain products and could cost families more than $1,200 a year at checkout. Soon after, Instacart announced in a company blog post that it would end the program that resulted in different shoppers being shown different prices for groceries on its platform. However, Instacart told CR that it would still allow its partners—grocery retailers and food brands—to test different types of promotions and discounts on their customers through the platform.
Many other states are considering surveillance pricing bans including California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and others.
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org