Surveillance Pricing Is Dynamic
June 3, 2026
What an outstanding idea? Put an app on a customer’s mobile device. Allow the user to opt in for special offers and automatically allow tracking. Combine these cute ideas with digital shelf pricing and what do you get?
One answer is a Ph.D. making videos called “They Call It Dynamic Pricing. It’s Surveillance Pricing.” As a YouTube video that explains how something works in Corporate America. El is a good presenter. But she does point out that when people watch a price change in real time, some folks get edgy.
Brick and mortar retail is the definition of competition. Most US big-time retail outfits want to extract the most profit possible from their customers. One way they ramp up the competition and increase their bottom dollar using surveillance pricing-a form of dynamic pricing.
Dynamic pricing once meant cutting the cost of paying humanoids to put little printed stickers on shelves with dog food. No more. Just feed in the parameters and let the digital tags respond. What happens when the system in a Kroger-type store “recognizes” a humanoid known to buy premium products?
The prices change according to that “customer’s” personal data: browsing history, location, purchasing behavior, etc. That’s why you see digital price tags everywhere in stores these days. Automatgically retailers can change prices or let a smart algorithm do the boosting. Scripps News published “Maryland Becomes First State To Pass Bill Banning ‘Surveillance Pricing.’”
The Protection From Predatory Pricing Act was passed in Maryland in April 2026. Governor Wes Moore will sign the bill into law. Retailers who violate the law will be met with deceptive trade practices fines and lawsuits.
“ ‘Marylanders deserve to know that the price they see on the shelf is the price they will pay at the register,’ Moore said in January. ‘Our administration is laser-focused on protecting Marylanders from skyrocketing costs. At a time when Marylanders are already stretched by the rising cost of groceries, housing and everyday necessities, we must ensure that new technologies are not used to drive up the bill for working families.’”
It wouldn’t be a big deal if that meant people got lower prices based on their data, but we know that’s not what will happen. Prices will be jacked up and supply and demand are no longer part of modern economics. Maryland, I salute you. My hunch is that the big corporates will win and Maryland’s attempt to make one facet of modern life less dystopian will flame out.
Whitney Grace, June 3, 2026
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