Policymakers Urged to Ban 1-to-1 Pricing With 'Real Price' Law
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 22
Policymakers Urged to Ban 1-to-1 Pricing With 'Real Price' Law
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 22
Summary
A proposed “real price” law would require companies to post a simple, public, consistent price in a given market, barring surveillance-based adjustments tailored to individual shoppers.
Personal data — including location, browsing history and social media activity — can be used to infer willingness to pay, turning discounts and offers into hidden tools to charge some customers more.
The proposal would still allow broad discounts and loyalty programs, but only if they do not rely on data extraction or opaque profiling that can produce higher fees, weaker benefits and coercive upselling.
Examples cited include Target’s 2022 settlement over alleged in-store price changes and claims that travel, retail and subscription businesses show different prices or fewer deals based on customer profiles.
Existing consumer-protection, privacy and antitrust laws can address some abuses, but the article argues they are insufficient without a broader rule against one-customer-at-a-time pricing.