Trenton, New Jersey – The New Jersey Legislature passed the Fair Price Protection Act today. If signed by Governor Sherrill, New Jersey will become the third state in the country to pass a law to curb personalized pricing. The Fair Price Protection Act would prohibit personalized pricing in the sale of groceries. Earlier in 2026, Maryland and Connecticut signed legislation aimed at banning the practice. Meanwhile, the New York legislature also passed a bill, which is awaiting Gov. Hochul’s signature.
Personalized pricing, also known as surveillance pricing, occurs when companies use consumers’ personal data, such as their browsing history, real-time location, inferred family size, or income, to set prices or discounts for consumers.
Consumer Reports previously testified before the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee in Trenton in support of the bill, while encouraging the legislature to make tweaks. CR also submitted testimony in late June, when the bill was heard by budget committees.
“Companies are leveraging AI and your personal data to charge you a different price from your neighbor for the same item,” said Grace Gedye, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “No consumer should have to pay more for groceries because a company knows what they’re searching for online, what their income is, the makeup of their household, or where they go. We applaud the New Jersey Legislature for taking up this affordability issue, however, this bill includes some loopholes that we encourage the Legislature to revisit and improve upon during the next session.”
If signed, CR recommends the New Jersey Legislature close loopholes and strengthen the bill during the next legislative session, including by:
- Require clear, specific, and public disclosures of loyalty program discounts and price benefits, along with the accompanying criteria and conditions for receiving the discount, to ensure that loyalty programs are not a way for grocers to do secret price discrimination
- Amend definition of “bona fide discount” to ensure that the “original” price was actually offered for a reasonably substantial period of time
- Expand the definition of location, to ensure that consumers can’t be profiled and charged different prices based on the locations they frequent, whether they are currently far from competitor stores, and more
- Making clear that consumers can take legal action if their rights under the law are violated, rather than petitioning the Attorney General—whose resources are limited—to act on their behalf
Background:
Other states are considering surveillance pricing bans including California, Illinois, and more. Additional information on Consumer Reports’ campaign to Make the Price Right can be found here.
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.
CR’s most recent investigation of Uber and Lyft’s AI-driven pricing tactics found that the companies routinely charge different customers significantly different prices for the same rides ordered at roughly the same time. CR also found that both apps regularly advertised supposed discounts off what appeared to be inflated original prices. (Note: CR defines “same rides” as trips from the same starting point to the same destination priced within minutes—and often seconds—of one another.)
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org