Surveillance pricing.
Maryland banned it in April. Connecticut banned it in June. New York’s One Fair Price Act cleared the legislature and is sitting on Governor Hochul’s desk right now. California has a bill moving, too.
More than 40 bills are active in at least 24 states. Algorithmic pricing isn’t new, but surveillance pricing is. And it’s bad.
Let me tell you why these 24 states are running like a greyhound on an open stretch of road.
States are racing to ban a pricing model most shoppers don’t even know exists yet. I’ll tell you how it works. The price on your screen isn’t the price on the next person’s screen. Retailers are building prices around what they know about you personally, not around what that item is worth.
Companies want to know what it’s worth to you.
They’re calling it personalization. It’s actually a system built to find the maximum amount — you specifically — will pay.
I changed prices by hand for 20 years
Every week, I did markdowns, price changes, and promo changes myself. I printed out packs of markdown lists so thick you could barely staple them together. I pulled styles off racks, threw them on rolling racks, and loaded plastic markdown guns with yellow or red stickers.
I spent about ten minutes every hour unjamming that gun. It took hours. Sometimes it took an entire eight-hour shift. By the end of the day, stickers and glue residue covered the bottom half of my T-shirt. But all that effort meant the price on the shelf stayed the same for the next person who walked by five minutes later.
That’s slipping away.
Electronic shelf labels are digital price tags that replace paper stickers. They allow retailers to change prices in seconds. This means no more sending someone down the aisle with a price gun. I’ve written before about the patents Walmart holds on this technology.
The patent describes what the system is capable of, not what the company is actually doing with it. So, understand that. But the hardware exists, the technology is spreading, and it’s the delivery mechanism for something bigger than faster price changes.
Three pricing terms that mean different things
Surge pricing is the one we’re familiar with. When demand spikes, so do prices. It’s why airline tickets cost more the week before Christmas. It’s why Lyft prices skyrocket when a concert lets out. Hotels do this, too. It’s annoying, but we’ve accepted it. We try to skate around it as best we can, but we’re also just like, it is what it is.
Dynamic pricing is the category that surge pricing sits inside. Prices move with market conditions, up or down, the way airlines have priced seats for decades. Dynamic prices will also change based on competitor tracking, inventory levels, time of day, and seasonal trends. Prices in this category will also fall based on seasons. If something is off-peak, companies will often discount it.
Think of dynamic pricing like a kangaroo. Surge pricing is the kangaroo’s baby sitting in her pouch. They’re nestled. They’re close. They’re not the same thing.
Surveillance pricing is the one moving through statehouses right now. It’s a price built from your loyalty app, your purchase history, and your location. This is not the company’s price. It’s your price.
Here’s what this looks like.
If the price is the same for everyone standing at the shelf right now, it’s dynamic or surge. I’m talking digital price tags. A small, local market with a paper tag isn't running dynamic pricing just because prices go up when costs do; that's every store, always.
Dynamic pricing means software is re-pricing automatically, in real time, off demand signals. The paper tag can't do that. The price stays put until someone changes it by hand.
If the price is different because of what the retailer knows about you, it’s surveillance pricing. You have no way to catch it happening. You would need to be standing next to another shopper comparing screens to even know.
The receipt won’t tell you this happened
There’s a labor cost buried in here too.
Every label that updates itself is a task that used to belong to a person on the floor. UFCW built its Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs campaign around exactly that. Fewer tags to change by hand mean fewer scheduled hours for the person who used to change them. I know what that job looked like. I did it every week.
Here’s where the state bans currently stand.
Maryland’s law covers large food retailers and delivery services,
effective October 1.Connecticut’s is broader — retail sellers generally, not just food.
New York has required algorithmic pricing disclosure since November. The newer bill on Hochul’s desk would ban surveillance pricing outright.
California’s AB 2564 would do the same.
Note: dynamic, surge, and surveillance pricing all fall under “algorithmic pricing.”
What do you do with this information?
Ask a manager whether your store has switched to digital shelf labels. Log out of the store’s app before price-checking anything. When you’re logged in, personalized pricing can run and identify you. If the price on your phone doesn’t match the price on the shelf for the same item, screenshot both and keep the receipt. That’s the documentation lawmakers are asking for as they build these cases. Then, tell a friend.
Now you know.
Kit Campoy spent 25 years on the floor leading retail teams. Now she writes about it. Author of The Retail Leader’s Field Guide and the voice behind this newsletter covering retail news and labor every week.
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