Democrats are putting the brakes on President Donald Trump’s big “affordability” push by proposing a union-backed ban on surveillance prices in grocery stores.

Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced a bill Thursday that would ban the controversial practice in which retailers use customers’ personal data to adjust their prices. The legislation would also restrict the use of electronic labels on supermarket shelves, which allow retailers to change their prices quickly and remotely.

The Senate proposal is based on a House bill. presented last year by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Michigan), who reintroduced the legislation Thursday with Rep. Val Hoyle (Oregon).

Tlaib told News themezone she is concerned about how powerful corporations could use personal data to implement individualized price increases, especially at a time when consumers are already feeling the pinch of inflation.

“All the big stores are considering using private information about what we’re browsing, what we’re watching, what apps we have, how far away we live, what job we have, what skin color, you know — just all this little private profile data to calculate prices,” Tlaib said.

He added: “This is something we have to combat. It’s price gouging. It’s corporate greed using artificial intelligence technology to raise prices.”

The legislation includes a couple of exceptions. Supermarkets could still use personal data to offer discounts to students or seniors, and smaller stores under 10,000 square feet would not be subject to the ban on electronic shelf labels.

Democrats say they are concerned that companies will use personal data to raise prices for individual buyers.
Democrats say they are concerned that companies will use personal data to raise prices for individual buyers.

via News

Surveillance pricing that relies on personal data is more extreme than what is known as algorithmic pricing, in which companies rapidly alter prices based on localized supply and demand. Even the latter practice could be hampered by a ban on electronic shelf labels, as grocery stores would have to switch to paper price labels.

A analysis Last year, the nonprofits Consumer Reports and More Perfect Union and the progressive policy group Groundwork Collaborative found that prices for Instacart shoppers varied by up to 23% for the same product at the exact same time in different stores.

“Instacart’s algorithmic pricing experiments were found to be occurring through the platform at several of the country’s largest grocery retailers, including Albertsons, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market and Target,” Consumer Reports wrote in its report. investigation.

The Democratic legislation is a priority for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents hundreds of thousands of grocery store employees nationwide.

The union has been pushing for similar bans in several states, concerned that advances in artificial intelligence could drive up prices for consumers and kill union jobs at supermarkets.

“Americans are suffering from the affordability crisis, and UFCW members see the pain on their faces every time they walk into grocery stores,” union president Milton Jones said in a statement. “Our members feel it too when they shop for their families.”