Corporate retailers—including large grocery chains—want to push new AI tech allowing them to charge different customers different prices for the same item based on our personal data.
Consumer Reports revealed that this scheme, called surveillance pricing, could raise our grocery bills by $1,200 per year!
The Seattle City Council is currently considering a bill to ban this predatory practice, and they need to hear from you.
Send your letter to the city council nowSurveillance Pricing Is Discriminatory
Stores feed AI your data—such as your internet browsing history, when you typically shop, and how long you shop—so they can set the highest price they think you will pay.
For instance, a store could charge one mother more than her neighbor for the exact same baby food because her data shows she has less time to comparison shop than her neighbor.
Two people buying the same item in the same store at the same time should pay the same price!
Your Discounts Are Safe
Unsurprisingly, grocery giants are trying hard to kill the bill or water it down.
They’re spending big money to fear-monger about this ordinance “endangering discounts.” That’s false.
The Fair Pricing and Transparency ordinance protects the discounts and loyalty programs you already use, such as publicly disclosed discounts, promotional discounts, volume discounts, discounts for broadly recognized groups like seniors or veterans, and loyalty-program discounts offered on equal terms.
Right now, the corporations are lobbying the council to create a loophole so they can use surveillance pricing within those discount programs. That loophole would gut the bill.
Since the vast majority of grocery transactions go through loyalty cards or other discount programs, that loophole would allow companies to run surveillance pricing on nearly every purchase.
Picture two loyalty card members buying the same item: One gets 20% off because the algorithm predicts they’ll shop elsewhere, and the other gets 5% off because the algorithm predicts they’ll buy anyway. Both offers may be called “discounts,” but the result is personalized pricing: two customers receiving different prices based on what a company’s data predicts about them. That’s not a “discount;” that’s unfair and opaque pricing.
Finally, ask yourself: Would the AI companies selling this technology have raised tens of millions from investors by promising to help grocery chains make less money? The answer is no.
Tell the Seattle City Council: NO AI PRICE HIKES IN OUR STORES
