SEATTLE — Seattle is banning grocery stores from using surveillance pricing, often described as using certain personal information to determine the prices or offers that shoppers receive. But retailers warn the new restrictions could put some of the discounts shoppers rely on at risk.
For customers like former teacher Karen Gross, the issue hits close to the wallet.
“What am I getting deals on?” Gross said after a trip to the grocery store. “I look at all those digital coupons.”
Gross pointed to a pork tenderloin that normally costs $8.99 but was marked down to $4.99. She said she’s a member of loyalty programs and pays attention to discounts and coupons.
Some shoppers KIRO 7 spoke with strongly opposed the idea.
“A price of a grocery should be the price of a grocery, not, ‘Oh, you’re Asian, you’re Indian, you’re white,’” shopper Gene Jarstad said. “It’s just so stupid.”
First city to ban surveillance pricing
Seattle is the first city to ban what’s known as surveillance pricing, joining Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey, which have enacted similar restrictions at the state level.
Colorado’s legislature passed a bill this May, but Governor Jared Polis vetoed the bill shortly after.
“It would punish differentially lower prices, not just higher prices,” he said.
In June, New York’s legislature passed what it called The One Fair Price Act, banning surveillance pricing while promising to protect discounts, coupons, and promotions.
The bill has not been signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul.
What is surveillance pricing?
KIRO 7 investigated surveillance pricing in May of 2025. Reporter Madeline Ottilie worked with journalists at eight Cox Media Group stations across the country to check prices on six different items from six different retailers. In one case, the price of a grill at Lowe’s increased by $70 when the ZIP code was changed to another location just 12 miles away.
When prices change online, experts like Alan Mislove, who’s studied surveillance pricing, say it’s often hard to know why.
“There are many potential explanations,” he said. “Getting insights into this ecosystem is very difficult. A lot of it happens behind the scenes.”
A December 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found that people who ordered groceries from various retailers through Instacart were charged different prices for the same groceries.
Seattle’s ban
Seattle’s new ordinance applies to large grocery chains as well as online delivery services such as Instacart and Amazon.
In the latter case, it applies to any delivery service provider that ‘facilitates delivery or online ordering services’ to a consumer in Seattle, even if the business selling the groceries is not physically located in Seattle.
The ordinance also gives consumers another potential avenue for holding companies accountable. Both private citizens and the city can pursue violations.
Grocery stores concerned
“It’s extremely problematic,” Jan Himebaugh, president of the Washington Retail Association, said.
Himebaugh said grocery stores support banning higher individualized prices for customers. However, she said retailers are concerned about protecting the discounts, coupons, and loyalty programs they use to bring shoppers back.
“We just need to make sure that we’re also protecting discounts and coupons and loyalty programs,” Himebaugh said.
The ordinance says discounts based on customers’ previous purchases are allowed, as long as they are not based on other personal data and are offered based on “tiers or groupings of consumer rather than individualized prices.”
For example, a store could potentially offer a discount to a group of customers who bought a particular soda the previous week.
But exactly how large or small those groups can be remains a concern for retailers.
“So it’s like, what are the size of the tiers?” Himebaugh said. “You could establish your tier and it could change because they’ve decided that your tier is not broad enough or too narrow.”
She said businesses could become reluctant to offer certain discounts if they are unsure whether those deals comply with the new law.
“Why would you, as a business that sells goods, open yourself up to that kind of liability?” she said.
KIRO 7 takes retailers’ concerns to the mayor
So KIRO 7 took those concerns directly to Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson.
“How do you keep stores from using your data to charge you more without losing the savings?” reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.
“So, this legislation also protects all of the normal coupons, discounts that we know and love,” Wilson said.
The mayor said people’s savings will be safe.
“I think this is really about the kind of data that’s being collected,” Wilson said. “It’s really about those individualized things. Your race, what neighborhood you live in, that we’re trying to avoid.”
But KIRO 7 also asked about the challenge of drawing that line: City officials will have to determine when the use of customer information qualifies for an allowed group discount and when it crosses into prohibited individualized pricing.
“Some of that is laid out in the ordinance, as you say, and then to the extent that there are kind of questions or clarifications that need to happen, that’s what happens during that rule-making process, where we’re doing more conversation with the grocers and with other stakeholders,” Wilson said.
The city said it expects that rule-making process and store education to begin in 2027, likely at the end of the first quarter, in March.
KIRO 7 questions mayor about enforcement
Another unanswered question is exactly how Seattle will enforce the ban.
The Seattle City Attorney’s Office will be responsible for handling violations, and unlike Maryland, Seattle’s ordinance does not include a warning period.
Maryland’s ban took effect Oct. 1, 2026, and gives businesses 45 days to correct violations.
KIRO 7 asked Wilson whether the City Attorney’s Office, which already carries other responsibilities, will have the capacity to take on the additional enforcement.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Wilson said. “I think we’ll be navigating this as we go. Again, this is groundbreaking legislation. So, we’re going to be taking those steps to implement. And we’ll see what kind of capacity we need for that enforcement.”
Shoppers will need a way to file complaints with the office, and the office will need to investigate those it determines may be valid.
The city said it anticipates that enforcement procedures will be developed in Q2 or early Q3 2027.
Wilson said enforcement could become a multi-department effort if necessary, wrapping in the Office of Finance and Administrative Services. FAS, she said, will be doing some of the educational outreach on the new ordinance.
The surveillance pricing ban takes effect Sept. 1, 2027.
Watch KIRO 7 News live at 5:30 p.m. Thursday for the full story.
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