California lawmakers want to ban surveillance pricing, where firms use personal data to charge different prices to different people. The EFF backs this bill to protect privacy, fairness, and open prices for all consumers.
Corporations collect vast amounts of personal information from users every day. This includes details like browsing habits and physical locations. They turn this data into profit by setting prices that vary from one person to the next. This practice, called surveillance pricing, creates hidden differences that many shoppers never notice.
Such pricing hurts privacy because it relies on constant tracking. It also reduces fairness, as some people pay more simply due to their data profile. Price transparency suffers too, since deals are not the same for everyone. These issues make the practice harmful in daily life and erode trust in markets.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation supports California Senate Bill 2564 to stop this approach. The measure would ban companies from using personal data for unequal pricing on the same goods. Lawmakers aim to restore equal treatment and limit invasive data use in commerce.
Original Author: Adam Schwartz | Source: EFF
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