Seattle became the first city to stop surveillance pricing in grocery stores. Mayor Katie B. Wilson and City Councilmember Alexis Mercades Rinck made the first public move to protect people’s privacy and make sure grocery prices are fair, transparent, and affordable.
Yesterday, September 23, with co-sponsors Councilmembers Dionne Foster and Rob Saka, the Full Council approved the Fair and Transparent Pricing policy, a first‑in‑the‑nation city-led consumer protection measure designed to stop grocery retailers from using personal data to set different prices for different customers.
“Food is an essential good that’s getting more expensive all the time,” said Mayor Katie Wilson. “People have been clear: they don’t want their data fed into algorithms that decide how much they pay at the grocery store. Everyone deserves transparent pricing and equal treatment, not hidden systems that charge some shoppers more than others.”
“Groceries are getting more expensive for everyday Seattleites, while the buying, selling, and leveraging our private information to manipulate prices is making big national grocery corporations millions in profits,” said City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck. “This legislation is intended to put some guardrails on what big businesses can do with our personal information. At a time when SNAP reductions have rocked our community and people have less to spend on food, this is an important step we can take to prevent AI-assisted price gouging and ensure fair discounts for everyone.”
The policy, developed through months of collaboration with labor partners, industry stakeholders, and community advocates, marks a major step toward making everyday essentials more affordable and ensuring pricing practices are fair, open, and consistent.
“Today’s vote demonstrates the immense power of working people standing together with the communities we serve,” said UFCW 3000 Secretary-Treasurer Sean Embly. “When we work together, we can protect our neighborhood stores from predatory practices that put profits over people. We hope the passage of this legislation helps us all return to the work of feeding our communities instead of feeding Wall Street’s greed.”
Related Article: FTC Steps Up Pressure on Supermarkets Over Surveillance Pricing
Fair Pricing policy
The Fair Pricing policy prevents large online and brick‑and‑mortar grocery retailers from using sensitive personal information—including employment status, race, gender, browsing history, social media activity, or chatbot conversations—to manipulate the prices customers pay. Retailers must clearly post prices for all shoppers. The policy fully protects traditional coupons and transparent discounts for groups like seniors and veterans, and it will deliver important benefits to Seattle residents.
It will curb emerging practices in which corporations use artificial intelligence and personal data to drive prices higher for certain customers. Investigations across the country, including recent reporting involving Seattle shoppers, have shown that algorithm‑based pricing can lead to dramatically different costs for the same products. Seattle’s action sets clear guardrails for the use of data and ensures grocery pricing stays rooted in fairness rather than surveillance‑driven targeting.
The Fair Pricing policy also aligns Seattle with national efforts to protect consumers from discriminatory and deceptive pricing practices. States such as New Jersey have set similar standards, and Seattle’s measure moves the city to the forefront of responsible technology governance and consumer protection.