NJ Legislature bans “surveillance pricing” for groceries

Republican lawmakers defended their shopping habits, including their love of free turkeys, Klondike coupons, and McDonald’s fries, in an Assembly floor debate last week over the “Fair Price Protection Act,” with the majority of lawmakers voting to prevent grocery stores from using surveillance pricing.

“My family likes Klondike bars, and lo and behold, after I checked out, the coupon that came out was for Klondike bars. Now, I get to save money on Klondike bars. Why should everybody get the same thing? If you don’t eat Klondike bars? Isn’t that kind of irrational?” Assembly Member Erik Peterson, a Republican from Franklin, asked. 

“I really like my free turkey at Thanksgiving,” Assembly Member Brian Rumpf, a Republican from Little Egg Harbor, added.

Peterson also praised shoppers’ rewards programs.

“McDonald’s has a fantastic one. 
McDonald’s knows what I’m going to buy and what I’m not going to buy. So every once in a while, McDonald’s will send me a message … ‘you’re gonna get free French fries.’ That might just be enough to get me to come in,” Peterson said as last Tuesday’s long legislative session stretched over the lunch and dinner hour.

The “Fair Price Protection Act,” A4085, moved to the governor’s desk after passing both the Senate and Assembly last Tuesday along largely partisan lines. 

Republicans, including Peterson and Rumpf, opposed the measure, which would prohibit stores from using personal consumer data, such as shopping history or geolocation information, to determine item prices at checkout

The sponsor of the bill, Assembly Member Chigozie Onyema, a Democrat from Maplewood, said some stores were using data to inflate the cost of food.

“People are being nudged, watched, profiled, and then quietly charged more than they expected to pay,” Onyema said. “Across the country, people are tired. “They’re tired of feeling like every corner of the economy is designed to outsmart them. They’re tired of hidden fees, cancellation systems, shrinking products, and apps that seem to know more about their lives than they do.”

Critics of the bill defended the business practice. 

“If a company’s a bad actor is doing surveillance pricing and it has come up with this algorithm about you, then, you know what? Don’t use them. There’s alternatives,” Peterson argued from the floor. “This is insanity. We’re trying to control too much. We’re putting these burdens on business, and quite honestly, we keep seeing business after business after business leave New Jersey.” 

“This bill is going to hurt consumers,” Rumpf said. “It’s going to hurt the ability of consumers to have the prices on the goods that they rely upon going down.” 

This article was written by Lucy Harper, courtesy of the NJ State House News Service.