Seattle becomes first U.S. city to ban algorithmic grocery pricing
The city council passed legislation prohibiting personalized pricing based on consumer data, with Mayor Wilson expected to sign.
What to know
- Seattle passed the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act, the first city-level ban on algorithmic pricing for groceries, prohibiting use of personal data to set personalized prices while allowing traditional senior and veteran discounts.
- The legislation stems from consumer advocacy investigations documenting that companies like Instacart and Kroger used data collection to quote different prices for identical items, with price differences reaching 23% for certain products.
- The bill applies only to grocery chains with more than 20 global locations, includes provisions for consumer lawsuits, and requires annual reporting; the council rejected amendments from grocery lobbies that would have weakened enforcement.
- Other states including New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey are considering or have passed similar bans, making Seattle's ordinance a potential model for broader surveillance pricing restrictions.
The dispute Whether the ban should apply to all retail categories or only groceries, and whether regulating algorithmic pricing alone addresses the underlying problem of data collection and discrimination through non-algorithmic means. · positions read across 21 posts and comments
The ban is necessary but incomplete—it should extend beyond groceries to all retail, and should restrict data collection more broadly.
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“Why is this limited to groceries? I don't want to pay a different price than others for any category of item, not just groceries.”
flowerlad · Hacker News ↗
The real problem is that 'bad prices' are set as baseline prices while discounts mask discrimination, making this ban difficult to enforce without addressing the structure of pricing itself.
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“The devil is really in the details... The issue is that "you gave me the regular price for some item but gave discounts to other people". That's trickier to outlaw because the "bad price" is the regular price, not a special discounted…”
apparent · Hacker News ↗
Better transparency and real-time price comparison tools would be more effective than bans at preventing exploitation by retailers.
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“I think a better solution would be to force retailers to submit accurate pricing information to price comparison aggregators preferably in real-time straight from their inventory system, and give consumers easy access to live price…”
gorbachev · Hacker News ↗
Mayor Katie Wilson Seattle MayorGrace Gedye Senior Policy Analyst, Consumer ReportsCouncilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck Seattle City CouncilCouncilmember Bob Kettle Seattle City CouncilConsumer Reports Consumer advocacy organizationUFCW 3000 Grocery workers' union
How it unfolded 3 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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National implications as other states consider similar bans
The New York State Legislature passed a similar measure in spring 2026, with Governor Kathy Hochul having until year-end to sign. Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey have also signed bills banning surveillance pricing. Seattle's ordinance may inform similar efforts nationwide.
“will make Seattle the first city in the country to take on algorithmic price discrimination for groceries.”
— Mayor Katie Wilson, Seattle Mayor · source -
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Seattle banned algorithmic pricing in grocery stores. It’s the First Law of Its Kind in the US https://www. thestranger.com/news/seattle-v otes-7-2-to-restrict-algorithmic-grocery-pricing/ # Seattle # Groceries # AI # Surveillance # SurveillancePricing
2 more of the top 3 · 20 posts in this stretch
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The devil is really in the details:> The bill also permits a vast array of discounting practices while requiring increased transparency around discounts and placing some limitations on how consumers can be profiled.The issue isn't "hey, you gave me a custom price that was disadvantageous". The issue is that "you gave me the regular price for some…
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There are a lot of commenters responding to this that appear to be confused about the Constitution and government power in the US.The federal government has the power to regulate the conduct of private actors and to regulate the activity between private actors. The Civil Rights Act is an obvious example.Relevant to this discussion, obviously HIPAA…
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Labor union and retailers respond to Seattle's ban
UFCW 3000, representing grocery workers, backed the legislation. Grocery lobby groups pressed the council for exemptions allowing personalized discounts, with Councilmember Bob Kettle sponsoring amendments on their behalf. Opponents argued algorithmic pricing enables business optimization, but the council rejected most amendments.
“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.”
— Grace Gedye, Senior Policy Analyst, Consumer Reports · source - 4 days quiet
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Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing, 7-2
The Seattle City Council passed the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act (CB 121267), prohibiting personalized pricing based on consumer data in grocery stores with more than 20 global locations. Mayor Katie Wilson proposed the measure and called it groundbreaking during her budget speech. The bill allows traditional discount categories for seniors and veterans while requiring transparency around discounts and limiting consumer profiling. Councilmember Bob Kettle introduced amendments to weaken the bill, including allowing algorithmic discounts and making it harder for consumers to sue, but most failed. The council approved a measure requiring an annual report on the ordinance's impacts.
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3 outlets first by KING5.com, 1d ago · also HN Best, HN Frontpage · read ↗
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first by NW Labor Press, 5d ago · also Yahoo
1 more headline
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background
Seattle City Council considers ban on surveillance pricing — The Seattle City Council began formal consideration of legislation to ban algorithmic pricing in grocery stores, with other cities including Portland examining similar measures.
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background
Consumer Reports reveals Instacart's algorithmic pricing differences — Consumer Reports, alongside Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, found that Instacart quoted different prices for identical product baskets from the same store at the same time. Price differences reached as high as 23% for certain products, potentially costing families over $1,200 annually. Instacart subsequently announced it would end the program but said it would still allow retailers and brands to test different promotions.
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Consumer Reports investigates Kroger's data collection practices — Consumer Reports found that Kroger collected vast data profiles for individual shoppers, including inferences about income, family size, education level, and gender. One shopper's data request under state privacy law yielded a 62-page profile.
What people are saying 16 voices from 1 site · best of 21 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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Seattle really doing its best to confront every single strawman argument regarding the high price of groceries other than the obvious and true ones.
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True story #1: whenever we go on vacation, wife and I check rates for Uber and Lyft on both of our phones, and consistently we get different rates up to 15% delta.True story #2: I am eyeing a nice Seiko watch on Amazon, the price has been oscillating between $296 and $316. Whatever, thinking about waiting for black friday. Then the other day the…
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You are broke, with no prospects and last hundred bucks in your account.You are show up at a macdonalds, hungry.The AI reads you and decides - nothing to be had from this hungry guy in the future and prices your last burger at 100.Excellent future.
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I think a better solution would be to force retailers to submit accurate pricing information to price comparison aggregators preferably in real-time straight from their inventory system, and give consumers easy access to live price comparison data. If everyone knew how much your retailer is screwing with you, surveillance economy would cease to…
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This will make the world much poorer. You might think that's worth it but it's true.
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The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the educational equivalent to HIPPA.
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Your solution is so efficient and workable that I highly doubt we will ever be able to implement it. Any future has to be something we can arrive at from where we are today, and since your future involves a few large corporations dropping their hands on fistfuls of cash, it's going to be really hard to get to it.
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I’m most concerned about data that would normally be illegal to collect or give to advertisers still making its way into their databases anyway. It would be illegal for your doctor to sell details about your health conditions to advertisers, but they may be able to infer it anyway from your purchasing or search data.Add AI to the mix and it gets…
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I think it's fine to allow it but if you're going to price things based on the individual buyer, you then should be forced to accept counter offers. Make everything negotiable.$5.00 for a gallon of milk? No, I'll give you $2.50. Back and forth until you find a mutually agreeable price.
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Why is this limited to groceries? I don't want to pay a different price than others for any category of item, not just groceries.Should gyms be able to charge me more based on my weight? Should airlines charge me more because they know I need to travel urgently? Should pharmacies charge me more for medication because they know I have a chronic…
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This is impossible is you consider the financial sector - any kind of unsecured private lending like mortgages become dead in the water, fraud detection goes out the window, money laundering, etc.
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Would it? The 1st is a prohibition on the rights of government, not private parties. Would the new amendment apply to the government, or to private sector, or to individuals? In any case, the 1st and the 28th? would continually be butting heads, since the 1st prohibits congress from passing laws that would enforce the 28th (and by extension, the…
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This is simply untenable. Institutions of all kinds have been keeping records connected to individuals for millennia.Try to run a school when you can’t maintain data on the students.
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Will Seattle City council also implement one parking fee for all neighborhoods and times of day?
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The best solution is a constitutional amendment that actually enshrines a right to privacy. Among other things, the retention, aggregation, correlation of any personal data should be illegal (including for commercial purposes). (Storage on behalf of users in encrypted form could be made OK. Could also be refined to support retention of data of the…
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Has buying groceries online been normalized to this extent? I still feel dirty about it, but maybe I’m too old fashioned.