AI is watching your spending and setting your prices accordingly. Lawmakers want to stop it - Los Angeles Times
AI is watching your spending and setting your prices accordingly. Lawmakers want to stop it - Los Angeles Times
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Audrey McGlinchy
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026
10 AM PT
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Audrey McGlinchy
Staff Writer
Aug. 31, 2026
10 AM PT
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Companies are increasingly using AI tools to sift through shoppers’ personal data and tailor prices in real time, raising alarms over hidden algorithms that can exploit desperation, income and location.
California lawmakers are weighing a ban on “surveillance pricing,” as states and federal regulators move to curb data-driven price discrimination they say undermines basic expectations of fairness.
Economists and consumer advocates disagree over the wisdom of a ban, and whether personalized pricing might often deliver lower costs, even as critics warn it obscures what things should cost and deepens anxiety about digital surveillance.
In 2025, a New York resident filed a lawsuit against JetBlue Airlines.
The lawsuit included a screenshot of a tweet from X. In it, a user complained to JetBlue that they were trying to “make it to a funeral” but that flight prices had risen $230 in just one day. A JetBlue representative replied to the tweet, recommending that the customer clear their browser history and try again.
The assumption,
the lawsuit alleged
, was that JetBlue was using customers’ personal data — anything from income to recent search history — to set prices, based on factors like their wealth, frugal or profligate spending habits, signs they might have a desperate need for the ticket. The practice is commonly called surveillance pricing or personalized pricing. JetBlue denied that they used it.
Lawmakers and regulators, both at the state and federal levels, have taken note. Amid a growing concern over
how corporations set their pric