Seattle Moves to Ban Algorithmic Grocery Pricing

The Seattle City Council is set to vote on a bill that would prohibit large grocery chains and third-party delivery apps from using customers’ personal data to set individualized prices or discounts. The measure, introduced by Mayor Katie Wilson and Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, targets retailers with more than 20 locations worldwide and would require electronic shelf-label pricing to be uniform for all shoppers.

The Stranger

Seattle would join a growing wave of U.S. jurisdictions tackling algorithmic price discrimination. Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut have already enacted statewide bans, while Portland and New York City are drafting comparable rules. A 2022 Consumer Reports study in which 39 volunteers shopped a Seattle Safeway store via Instacart found identical baskets priced anywhere from $114 to $124, suggesting that algorithmic pricing could generate up to $1,200 in extra annual costs for a family of four. The study’s authors note that the practice is already common in online retail and could soon extend to brick-and-mortar stores as electronic price tags become widespread. In 2019, Kroger’s marketing arm reported collecting more than 2,000 data points on customers through purchase histories and data-broker sources, data that would feed the pricing algorithms the ordinance seeks to curb.

The Stranger

Kerem Levitas, senior policy advisor in Mayor Wilson’s office, said Seattle would be the first city to enact a ban of this kind, building on the model of earlier state laws. Maya Morales, founder of Washington People’s Privacy, argues that prohibiting individualized pricing is the only way to prevent discrimination based on protected characteristics, because proprietary algorithms are difficult for auditors to inspect.

The Stranger

• “What happens is people are offered these individualized discounts, but often they’ve used a deceptive pricing model and a deceptive discount model to actually end up with customers paying more,” — Maya Morales, people’s privacy founder

The Stranger