Seattle City Council has passed a ban on surveillance pricing by grocery retailers. Under surveillance pricing a retailer uses information it has gathered about individual customers to determine what price the customer is charged.
The grocery union United Food and Commercial Workers has been pushing for such bans nationwide. Seattle’s Fair Pricing and Transparency ordinance — the first city law in the country banning surveillance pricing — was in response to advocacy from UFCW Local 3000 and from MLK Labor, the central labor council in King County. The Sept. 22 vote was 7-2, and the ban will take effect Sept. 1, 2027.
The ban will apply to grocery stores and grocery delivery services like Instacart. But it doesn’t prevent retailers from offering discounts based on bulk purchases, loyalty card programs, or discounts for veterans or seniors.
Local 3000 celebrated passage of the ordinance with a press statement: “We believe that today’s vote means that Seattle shoppers will pay the same price for the same product when they’re shopping at the same store, and that grocery store workers won’t have to spend time trying to explain secret algorithmic decisions to customers expressing understandable frustration and confusion over paying different prices for the same items.”
