Do you remember the "Red Lining" that banks used to do around Black communities for mortgages and loans, when they jacked up interest rates for Black communities?
Well, in the 21st century, it has taken a new twist with a new name: dynamic pricing! And guess what?
It is creating the same questions as did original redlining.
So, what is dynamic pricing? Imagine a giant mail-order company. In an affluent suburb, they might lower prices to get residents to buy more and keep costs competitive. But in a lower-income neighborhood, where families buy less, the business might jack up prices, reasoning that people "have to buy anyway." That isn’t free-market economics. That’s digital redlining.
Also, the pricing varies from person to person, and that is called surveillance pricing. This is where companies don't just draw a line around a zip code; they draw a digital boundary around you as an individual.
Redlining is a discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity. Redlining disregards individual’s qualifications and creditworthiness to refuse such services, solely based on the residency of those individuals in minority neighborhoods; which have also quite often been deemed “hazardous” or “dangerous.”
Beyond the discriminatory banking practice of excluding certain neighborhoods from financial services, redlining can also reach the withholding of more important and essential services such as the construction of grocery stores and supermarkets or even the withholding of healthcare services.
And now it is done by computers and AI!
AP News
By DEE-ANN DURBIN and ANNE D’INNOCENZIO
October 18, 2026
U.S. consumers aren’t just frustrated with high prices. They’re angry and confused about the increasingly high-tech ways that restaurant chains and major retailers are setting those prices.
Digital price tags are rapidly replacing paper ones in grocery aisles. Artificial intelligence tools help businesses decide what to charge by predicting how customers might respond. Terms like “dynamic pricing” and “surveillance pricing” are stirring anxiety on social media, where users wonder if different people are getting different prices for the same product.
Americans have grown accustomed to changing prices when booking flights, hotel rooms and rides, but the prospect of everyday spending shaped by algorithms they don’t understand and personal data they may not realize they’re sharing has touched a nerve.
“There are major tensions happening right now between who’s really going to have the power with some of these algorithms and usage of bots and AI: the companies or the shopper,” said Katie Thomas, who leads an internal consumer behavior think tank at the management consulting firm Kearney.
It is one thing to go in and haggle over a price... it is totally an animal of a different color to adjust prices on a discriminatory basis.
Lawmakers and regulators are taking action. Legislators in at least 30 states have considered pricing bills this year, including measures addressing algorithmic and personalized pricing, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
While...
Personalized pricing, also called surveillance pricing, draws on customer data
What it is: Personalized pricing means offering customers different prices and discounts based on their locations, incomes, web-browsing habits and other information about individuals or groups of shoppers. Some advocacy groups and regulators use the term “surveillance pricing” for the same practice.
Why it matters: It’s unclear how widely businesses use personal information to customize prices. An FTC staff report released in January 2025 found that intermediaries offering tools that can tailor prices and promotions worked with at least 250 clients, including grocery and clothing retailers.
For Halloween display on Amazon...
Incognito browser: $38.99
Chrome (My normal browser): $30.99
Data in Retail Pricing Decisions
JdSupra
Baker Hostetler
August 14, 2026
Retailers are increasingly relying on consumer data, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence to personalize offers and pricing – a practice commonly referred to as “surveillance pricing.” In the absence of comprehensive federal legislation, individual states have begun regulating the practice.
[...]
Connecticut’s Broad Approach
Earlier this year, Connecticut passed SB4/HB5563, amending the Connecticut Data Privacy Act to prohibit the use of surveillance pricing by any retail seller operating in the state, including food establishments and third-party delivery services, across a wide range of industries. Effective October 1, 2026, the law also requires a mandatory disclosure in the event a consumer’s personal data was used to increase that price.
As with New Jersey, certain common pricing practices are exempt from the broad sweep of the statute, including (i) pricing for customer retention, (ii) justifiable costs incurred in providing a good or service, and (iii) group discounts and loyalty programs.
But you notice one glaring gap... online retailers! With the phrase "retail seller operating in the state," would Amazon be included because they have warehouses in Connecticut?
CBS News
By Megan Cerullo
August 21, 2026
The Federal Trade Commission is warning companies that use customers' personal information to set different prices based on what they believe is a shopper's propensity to pay that they could be breaking the law.
In a proposed enforcement policy statement released Wednesday, the FTC said consumers expect prices for products and services to apply uniformly to all customers, rather than fluctuating based on their online browsing habits, purchase history, or other factors that could reflect their willingness to pay.
"When consumers walk into a retail store, for example, they reasonably expect the price on the shelf to be the same price offered to any other consumer shopping at the same store at the same time," the FTC said.
The agency added, "Likewise, when they browse to a product listing on a retailer's website, they reasonably expect the price to be the same price that anyone else browsing to that listing would see, not a price set based on the retailer's analysis of their personal data and conclusion as to how much they would be willing to pay for that product as compared to some other consumer."
This is a whole brave new world. I think we all know that prices vary with online retailers, but it becomes dangerous when algorithms base those variations on information that crosses the line into discrimination.
Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics -- George Washington University
Kyle Wiggers
June 12, 2020
A preprint study published by researchers at George Washington University presents evidence of social bias in the algorithms ride-sharing startups like Uber, Lyft, and Via use to price fares. In a large-scale fairness analysis of Chicago-area ride-hailing samples -- made in conjunction with the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) data -- metrics from tens of millions of rides indicate ethnicity, age, housing prices, and education influence the dynamic fare pricing models used by ride-hailing apps.
The idea that dynamic algorithmic pricing disproportionately -- if unintentionally -- affects certain demographics is not new. In 2015, a model used by the Princeton Review was found to be twice as likely to charge Asian Americans higher test-preparation prices than other customers, regardless of income. As the use of algorithmic dynamic pricing proliferates in other domains, the authors of this study argue it's crucial that unintended consequences -- like racially based disparities -- are identified and accounted for.
"When machine learning is applied to social data, the algorithms learn the statistical regularities of the historical injustices and social biases embedded in these data sets," paper coauthors assistant professor Aylin Caliskan and Ph.D. candidate Akshat Pandey told VentureBeat via email. "With the starting point that machine learning models trained on social data contain biases, we wanted to explore if ... [the] algorithmic ride-hailing data set exhibits any social biases."
At one time, discrimination was visible and out in the open; now, it is covert, hidden in computer programs.
New York Post
By Aurielle Weiss
June 15, 2026
Another grocery giant is following in Walmart’s footsteps, hitting shoppers where it hurts — their wallets.
Walmart may have found another way to nickel-and-dime shoppers before they even get to the checkout, as back in 2024, the retail giant revealed it would add digital shelf labels — or DSLs — to all US stores.
Some shoppers fear dynamic pricing would peak its sneaky head out.
Also known as surge pricing, the controversial practice is where businesses have the ability to adjust their prices in real-time with digital tags. The changes are based on market conditions like demand, competitor pricing and inventory — or so they claim.
[...]
Walmart told The Post that its DSL system does not allow prices to increase during store hours as items are locked in for the day — it’s built into their program. If shoppers spot a change during the day, it would only be a price decrease.
Isn't that might nice of them!
Kroger will expand its already large number of stores using sneaky digital tags. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that hundreds of more locations in the Cincinnati-Dayton division — which includes Northern Kentucky — will now use digital price tags.
The powerhouse has been rolling out electronic shelf labels — or ESLs — to hundreds of its stores across the country as early as 2018. Kroger previously shared that nearly one in four of its locations nationwide have them.
What we need is another law... this one, when something goes out on the shelves the price is fixed!
You remember at one time... the price got stuck on the item, now it is their new fancy ESLs that can change the price at any time!
