Seattle City Council Moves to Outlaw "Surveillance Pricing" for Groceries

Date: September 22, 2026
Location: Seattle, Washington

In a landmark move, the Seattle City Council has approved the CB 121267 legislation, known as the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act. If signed into law, Seattle will distinguish itself as the first municipality in the United States to legally prohibit the practice of personalized pricing for grocery items.

Understanding the Legislation

The core objective of this bill is to stop retailers from utilizing a customer's private information to manipulate the cost of essential goods.

Prohibited Data Points for Pricing:

Web-browsing history
Real-time geographic location
Estimated income levels
Family size and composition
Personal health conditions

While the act bans surveillance-based price hikes, it ~~does not~~ ban all discounts. Instead, it:

Permits a wide variety of traditional discounting.
Mandates higher transparency regarding how discounts are applied.
Imposes strict boundaries on consumer profiling.

"Nobody should pay more for basic necessities because a data broker is quietly collecting information about what they’re searching for online, what they hover over, what their income is, or where they go," stated Grace Gedye, a senior policy analyst with Consumer Reports. "The price you see shouldn’t be different based on who you are."

The Mechanics of Surveillance Pricing

To understand why this law is necessary, we can look at the logic used by algorithmic pricing engines:

Evidence and Investigations

Consumer Reports (CR) played a pivotal role in this legislation by providing technical expertise to the Mayor's office and conducting extensive research into corporate data practices.

Corporate Data Analysis

The following table summarizes CR's findings regarding various tech and retail giants:

Company	Investigation Date	Key Finding	Impact/Detail
Kroger	May 2025	Massive data profiling	One user received a 62-page personal profile.
Instacart	Dec 2025	Algorithmic price variance	Same items, same time, different prices.
Uber/Lyft	Recent	AI-driven ride pricing	Significant price gaps for identical trips.

The Cost of Algorithmic Pricing

In the Instacart study, CR analyzed nearly 400 consumers. The results were startling:

Price Variance: Some products saw differences as high as $\text{23\%}$ .
Annual Impact: This could result in families paying an extra $\approx \$ 1,200$ per year.

Following this investigation, Instacart claimed it would end the specific program causing these discrepancies, though they noted that partners (brands and retailers) could still experiment with targeted promotions.

Broader Context and Next Steps

Seattle is not alone in this fight, though it is the first city. Several states have already implemented similar bans:

Maryland
Connecticut
New Jersey

CR's Ongoing Advocacy Goals:

Provide technical assistance for Seattle's CB 121267.
Expose AI-driven pricing in ride-sharing apps.
Expand "Make the Price Right" campaign nationwide.

Regarding ride-sharing, CR noted that Uber and Lyft often use "inflated original prices" to make their discounts appear more attractive than they actually are.

Contact Information:
For further inquiries, reach out to cyrus.rassool@consumer.org.

Expert Profile:
Grace Gedye — Policy Analyst, Tech Privacy.

Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries