Psst! Your grocery store is listening to you. 👂 It knows what casserole recipes you’ve been saving on Pinterest. Unfortunately, it doesn’t know why recipes always include a person’s life story. We don’t care, Carol. 🙄🥘
All tinfoil hats aside, surveillance pricing is no joke. With the funny business ramping up, PA lawmakers are stepping up with a possible solution. 💡
Here’s Five Fast Facts on the proposed PA bill:
- 👀 Somebody’s Watchin’ Me - No, surveillance pricing isn’t when your dad monitors your shopping sprees. It’s when companies get access to your personal online data and use it to predict how much you’d pay for stuff. In other words, they use your info to adjust prices.
- 🛒 Look Away - To help stop this practice, PA lawmakers proposed a bill that would ban surveillance pricing in the Keystone State. If passed, the bill would also place regulations on how companies use consumer data when pricing.
- 👿 Dirty Deeds - This new bill drops right as Instacart just got busted for doing surveillance pricing experiments on their customers. According to an investigative report, Instacart’s prices differed by as much as 23% per item.
- 💰 Fine Print - On December 18, the FTC announced they were slapping a $60M penalty against Instacart for their shadiness. However, they’re not the only company dabbling in surveillance pricing. Other retailers and travel booking companies do, too.
- ⚖️ All Aboard - Pennsylvania isn’t the first state to propose a bill like this. The first of its kind hit the floor in Texas back in July. Arizona also just introduced a similar bill called the One Fair Price Act.
🔥Bottom line: Inflation and expensive grocery essentials are bad enough. We don’t need stores jacking up the prices because they think we’re bougie! Planning a New Year’s get together? Certain party favorites, like wine and prime rib, tend to get more costly. If you’re looking for some cheap shortcuts, wander over to this article!
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