What is surveillance pricing?
Surveillance pricing is when a company uses what it knows about you, like your location, your browsing, or the cart you walked away from, to set a price just for you. Two people can buy the same thing, at the same store, at the same moment, and pay different amounts. It isn’t surge pricing, which moves the price for everyone at once. There’s no federal law against it. Three states have acted.
How it’s different from surge pricing
Surge pricing moves for everybody. When more people want a ride than there are drivers, the price goes up for every rider at that moment. That’s dynamic pricing, and airlines and hotels have done it for decades.
Surveillance pricing moves for one person. The question behind it isn’t “how busy is it right now?” It’s “how much will you pay?” Maryland and Connecticut wrote that exact line into their laws: the ban covers prices set from your personal data, not prices that change with demand.
What goes into your price
In July 2024 the Federal Trade Commission ordered eight companies that sell pricing tools to retailers to explain how those tools work. The eight were Mastercard, Revionics, Bloomreach, JPMorgan Chase, Task Software, PROS, Accenture and McKinsey.
The early findings came out in January 2025. Staff found tools that could use your precise location, your browsing history, your demographics, how your mouse moves on a page, and whether you left something in a cart. The FTC’s own example: someone the system has pegged as a new parent could be shown pricier baby thermometers first.
Then the study stalled. The new FTC chair closed the public comment period within days of taking over, and there’s still no final report, no rule and no enforcement action. In April 2026 Chair Andrew Ferguson said staff were looking at whether companies should have to disclose it.
Where it’s legal right now
Mostly everywhere. The rules so far are state by state, and only a few states have one.
New York: you have to be told
New York doesn’t ban it. Since November 10, 2025, a company that uses your personal data to set a price has to say so next to the price, in these words: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” Retailers sued to block the law and lost.
Maryland: banned for groceries
The first state to ban it. Large grocery stores and food delivery services can’t raise the price of food for you based on your personal data. Signed April 28, 2026, and in effect October 1, 2026. Loyalty discounts and sales are still allowed.
Connecticut: banned for retail, starting 2027
Signed June 4, 2026, and broader than Maryland’s: retail sellers and delivery services can’t set a personal price from your personal data starting July 1, 2027. Student, veteran and senior discounts and loyalty programs are still allowed.
California: tried, and stalled
A 2025 bill, AB 446, started as a statewide ban, got cut down to groceries only, and was shelved in September 2025. It isn’t law.
Congress: bills, no law
Several bills to ban it have been introduced since 2025. None has passed.
The case that made it real: Instacart
In September 2025, Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union had more than 400 people shop the same Instacart items, at the same stores, at the same time. Nearly three out of four items showed up at more than one price. The average gap between the highest and lowest price was 13 percent, and some shoppers paid up to 23 percent more. The researchers estimated that could cost a family of four about $1,200 a year.
Instacart ended the price tests on December 22, 2025. One honest caveat: the study proved the prices were experiments. It didn’t prove each price was built from that shopper’s data. From the outside you can’t tell which one you’re in, which is most of the problem.
In 2026, New York’s attorney general asked Instacart whether it follows the new disclosure law, saying the notice was buried behind fine print instead of sitting next to the price.
What you can do about it
Check the price twice
Look at the same item logged out, in a private window, or on another device. That’s how the Instacart researchers caught it. Nobody has tested whether it gets you the lower price, but it tells you whether there’s more than one.
Opt out of the sale of your data
If your state has a privacy law, California’s for one, businesses have to honor a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” request. Less of your data shared is less to price you with.
Keep your loyalty discount
The new state laws leave loyalty programs alone on purpose. You don’t have to give up a member price to be protected.
In New York, read the label
If you see the algorithm notice next to a price, that price was set with your data. You can shop somewhere else, and the state attorney general enforces the law.
Questions people ask
Is surveillance pricing legal?
In most of the US, yes. There’s no federal law against it, and the FTC’s study never became a rule. New York requires a notice next to any price set with your personal data. Maryland bans it for large grocery stores and food delivery from October 1, 2026, and Connecticut bans it for retail from July 1, 2027.
What’s the difference between surveillance pricing and dynamic pricing?
Dynamic pricing changes the price for everyone based on demand, like surge pricing when a lot of people want a ride at once. Surveillance pricing changes the price for one person based on data about that person, so two people buying the same thing at the same time can pay different amounts.
Does Instacart charge different people different prices?
It did. A 2025 investigation by Consumer Reports, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union found nearly three quarters of the items tested at more than one price for the same item, store and time, up to 23 percent apart. Instacart ended those price tests in December 2025.
Do airlines use surveillance pricing?
Some lawmakers think so. In 2025, members of Congress asked Delta whether its AI pricing tool from Fetcherr sets fares from personal data. Delta says it doesn’t, and that the tool forecasts demand for a route, not for a person. Nothing public has settled it either way.
Where this comes from
- FTC orders eight companies to explain surveillance pricing tools, July 2024
- FTC surveillance pricing study findings, January 2025
- New FTC chair closes public comment on surveillance pricing (Retail Brew)
- New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act takes effect (Jones Day)
- New York’s law upheld against the retailers’ challenge (Troutman)
- New York attorney general’s questions to Instacart, 2026
- Maryland restricts surveillance pricing in the food industry (Skadden)
- Connecticut is the second state to ban surveillance pricing (EPIC)
- California AB 446 bill status
- Consumer Reports on Instacart’s price tests, December 2025
- Groundwork Collaborative, “Same Cart, Different Price”
- Instacart ends its price tests (Consumer Reports)
- Delta’s statement on AI pricing
The course goes further
Module 10 of the course, “The price that knows your name,” is this whole topic: how the tools work, which laws apply where you live, and what to do when a price feels personal.
Your Data Rights is a plain-English course on what companies collect about you, what they’re allowed to do with it, and what you can do back. The app is waiting on store review.