The news: Democratic lawmakers in Washington state proposed a bill that would ban surveillance and surge pricing in grocery stores and establish a four-year moratorium on the use of electronic shelf labels.

The aim is to protect consumers from “discriminatory and opaque pricing practices” in the grocery sector, and to help ease the risk that such tactics compound affordability challenges facing households.

The legislative landscape: Several states—including California, Colorado, and Georgia—have considered legislative action to limit companies’ ability to personalize pricing to shoppers based on their data.

• New York introduced a law in late 2025 that requires companies to disclose when prices have been set by an algorithm using customers’ personal information, although it stops short of banning the practice.
• While most other initiatives have stalled, recent revelations about Instacart’s algorithmic pricing experiments, combined with consumer frustration over rising grocery prices, could galvanize lawmakers into renewing efforts to clamp down on surveillance pricing and similar practices.

Implications for retailers: Retailers that rely on surveillance pricing risk losing consumer trust and attracting regulators’ ire.

• Over two-thirds (68%) of US adults consider dynamic pricing to be a form of price gouging, per a 2024 CivicScience survey.
• With cost-of-living pressures top of mind for most voters, lawmakers could make cracking down on surveillance and other forms of dynamic pricing a top priority in 2026.

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