Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries(advocacy.consumerreports.org)
384 points by ortusdux 20 days ago | 224 comments
tl;dr: Seattle's City Council passed the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act, which would ban grocers from using personal data (browsing history, location, income inferences, etc.) to set individualized prices on groceries and essentials. If signed by Mayor Wilson, Seattle would be the first city to prohibit the practice, following similar state-level bans in Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The bill still permits discounting but requires greater transparency and limits consumer profiling.
HN Discussion:
  • ↑Broader privacy protections via constitutional amendment would solve this and similar surveillance issues
  • ~The ban should extend beyond groceries to all categories of goods and services
  • ~The bill has loopholes since discounting to others is effectively the same as surge pricing
  • ~Mandatory price transparency to aggregators would be a better solution than banning the practice
  • ↓Seattle is addressing a strawman rather than the real causes of high grocery prices