On September 21st, Consumer Reports submitted testimony to the Seattle City Council regarding the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act (CB 121267), a bill aimed at prohibiting surveillance pricing in the sale of groceries.
Surveillance pricing, also sometimes referred to as personalized pricing, is when a company uses personal data that they’ve gathered about a consumer—like data about their online search history, or inferences about family structure, health conditions, or income—to set the price of a product or determine the discount offered to a consumer.
Consumer Reports is strongly supportive of curbing surveillance pricing. Fair Pricing and Transparency Act would be an important starting point for prohibitions that cover the sale of goods and services more broadly. CR also urged the council not to weaken the bill via amendments or add loopholes that would, in practice, leave consumers unprotected.
See the letter linked above for more.