New York City’s Council has approved legislation prohibiting businesses from using personal information to show different prices to different customers, a practice lawmakers describe as surveillance pricing. The measure covers online transactions and purchases in physical stores, though the pricing systems under scrutiny are most often used on websites and apps.
The legislation targets prices generated from data including demographics, credit information, browsing activity and purchasing history. Its central premise is that information collected about a shopper should not be used to determine the base price that person sees for a product or service. The city would be able to levy fines of as much as $1,000 for every transaction that violates the ban.
Council Speaker Julie Menin, the bill’s sponsor, presented the practice as both a privacy concern and an affordability issue. Before the vote, she argued that data-driven individualized pricing lets companies exploit information customers may not realize is influencing the offer placed in front of them.
The Council pointed to earlier scrutiny of location-sensitive pricing. In one cited investigation, the price displayed in Target’s app for a 55-inch television was $499 while a shopper was inside a store but $599 from the store parking lot. That example illustrates how a device’s location can become one factor in a pricing decision that is not obvious to the customer.
Companies in retail, transportation, delivery and aviation have faced questions over alleged surveillance pricing, although many have denied using it. Business groups contend that a broadly written restriction could make loyalty programs and targeted discounts harder to operate. Uber spokesperson Josh Gold said the law could disadvantage small restaurants using Uber Eats offers to reach customers. Menin said discounts would remain unaffected.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has expressed support for the city measure. The Council action also follows surveillance-pricing legislation approved by New York state lawmakers in June, which includes some exceptions. The city bill establishes a separate local enforcement mechanism through transaction-level penalties.
Implementation will require regulators to distinguish a prohibited individualized price from a lawful discount. That boundary matters because both can rely on customer information, but they do not necessarily produce the same result. The legislation is aimed at preventing personal data from raising or otherwise determining a shopper’s underlying price, while preserving ordinary promotional offers.
For consumers, the vote makes data use part of price transparency: businesses covered by the measure will not be permitted to silently turn a person’s browsing, buying, credit or demographic profile into a different price at checkout.
