Annapolis, Maryland – Governor Wes Moore signed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act into law today, making Maryland the first state in the nation to attempt to ban personalized pricing at grocery stores. The law will go into effect on October 1, 2026.
Consumer Reports recently voiced strong concerns about provisions in the law prior to its signing, noting that industry-backed changes weakened the measure and made it unlikely to protect Marylanders from surveillance pricing.
“We appreciate Governor Wes Moore and the Maryland legislature for making the issue of surveillance pricing a top priority during this legislative session,” said Grace Gedye, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “Unfortunately this law has too many industry-friendly loopholes, and weak enforcement provisions. It won’t protect Marylanders from surveillance pricing. We urge Maryland lawmakers to revisit the legislation next year to build in stronger consumer protections and remove loopholes that undermine the intent of this law.”
Several provisions of the law 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)
- Applying the ban only to customized prices for individuals, but not hyper-specific segments of consumers (eg. “shoppers over 70, who live alone, don’t live near competitor stores, and are interested in recliners”). Surveillance pricing for niche consumer segments has a similar impact in practice to individual-level pricing.
- 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 law 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