The New York City Council on Thursday voted to ban surveillance pricing, joining Maryland, New Jersey, and Connecticut in doing so. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to sign it. “New Yorkers’ personal data should never be used as a weapon against their own pocketbooks,” he said in a statement to local media. “Our administration will continue working with the council to protect workers, tenants, and consumers and put an end to the scam economy.”
Surveillance pricing is a practice many companies use to monitor customers and set prices digitally, sometimes charging customers more depending on where they are, how much they make, when they’re shopping, and other data gathered on them through their apps and loyalty programs. It is also something Democrats in Washington, D.C., are likely to aim for next year when they take over Congress. Whether they follow through on this issue will be a telling test of how broad they perceive their mandate to fight for the working class to be.
Arguing that populist economic policies drove the nationwide election results, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said at a progressive conference Tuesday that incoming Democrats should rein in the Trump family and corporate corruption through budget reconciliation or new legislation and dare President Trump to veto popular reforms, including bans on AI surveillance pricing. “We won big by naming what is wrong and convincing voters that we would take on a rigged system in order to fix it,” she said. “But here’s the thing. It would be a tremendous breach of faith with the people who voted for us to spend the next two years ahead of the 2028 election railing against Trump and waiting for a future Democratic trifecta to deliver meaningful change.”
Tackling surveillance pricing combines voter concerns over high pricing and the infiltration of artificial intelligence tools into more and more parts of their everyday life. “I think surveillance pricing sits nicely at the intersection of both overreach in Big Tech and overreach in Washington, but also higher prices,” said Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, which co-hosted the conference, Popular Mandate, with other progressive think tanks and organizations.
And while there’s the potential bipartisan support for banning surveillance pricing, Democrats can do a lot to show they’re on the side of working people just by taking on the issue, even if President Trump refuses to sign any legislation.
Part of the reason we know so much about the use of digital surveillance and algorithmic pricing and how much it costs families is that Groundwork has been investigating companies and publishing its findings. Primarily driven through apps, algorithmic pricing uses information gathered on consumers, posing privacy concerns and undermining transparency in pricing. A year ago, Groundwork released a report showing that Instacart, the grocery shopping app, charged customers wildly different prices based on who was shopping. The average cost swings could add up to $1,200 per family per year, the report found. Instacart stopped its pricing tests after the report generated outrage.
Of course, it’s not just Instacart. Warren joined progressive representatives to demand answers on McDonald’s use of AI pricing, and the Federal Trade Commission targeted nine companies—Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target, and Walmart—in an investigation launched in October. In addition to costing customers more, regulators think algorithms might provide opportunities for collusion that violates antitrust rules. A 2023 antitrust lawsuit against Realpage, a real estate tool used by landlords to set rents, was just settled with $360 million awarded to the impacted renters. Many states are already working to ban such practices, and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, is among those who have called for federal legislation.
But investigations and hearings could accomplish a lot on their own. Democrats are reviewing plans from Groundwork to investigate corporations using their new platform as the majority party, which would give them opportunities to subpoena information and force CEOs to testify. It would also provide the opportunity for members to champion fixes to the cost and wage issues that Americans who live paycheck to paycheck care most about. Owens said the investigations themselves could prompt companies to stop these practices, pointing to the Instacart experience.
Of course, some more conservative members might balk at going after corporations too harshly, and centrist think tanks and consultants warn that being seen as broadly anti-business could backfire. But there’s evidence voters want these types of hearings. In a poll commissioned by Groundwork and performed by Hart Research during early voting and just after Election Day in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, voters listed “cares about and fights for working people and people like me” as the top reason for choosing their Democratic Senate candidate.
While prices and the cost of living were voters’ top concern, voters also believe the problem goes beyond inflation. “The economy has deeper problems than just high prices for everyday essentials. For too long, the system has favored the wealthy and large corporations at the expense of working families. Bringing down prices is important, but what we really need are fundamental changes so the economy works for everyone, not just those at the top” got support from 52 percent of all voters and 71 percent of Democratic voters, while a statement focusing just on prices and inflation got support from 44 percent of all voters and 26 percent of Democratic voters. Some of that is linked to practices like surveillance pricing, which seems unfair and unpredictable. How can a mom or dad budget for their family if they have no idea what their household’s food is going to cost from one week to the next?
Voters don’t think that the government moves too slowly to address issues like prices and corporate power. They think it hasn’t been a priority for their elected officials, and that’s what voters want changed. The statement “Government prioritizes the interests of billionaires, big corporations, and lobbyists instead of fighting for the interests of average Americans” got support from 62 percent of all voters and 84 percent of Democrats.
If Democrats launch a program to truly investigate the corporations relying on surveillance and algorithmic pricing, they could do something even more important than lower prices for consumers: They could show voters they’re on their side. That’s especially because many of the incoming senators and representatives are talented communicators, using social media tools and expertise to get their message straight to voters.
Communicating to constituents is an important part of an elected official’s job, and sharing YouTube clips and Instagram reels of members grilling CEOs about their pricing practices could be part of that. Anti–price gouging rules could be an easy win. But if hearings and a few easy wins are the only things Democrats accomplish, it won’t be enough to relieve the pain many working-class families feel. They need to be in for a long fight.
