New Jersey lawmakers are advancing two bills that would bar grocery stores, retailers, and delivery platforms from using customers' personal data to set individualized prices, with penalties reaching $20,000 per offense for repeat violators.
The proposals, Senate Bill 3612 and Senate Bill 3732, take direct aim at what supporters call "surveillance pricing", the practice of adjusting what a shopper pays based on browsing history, location data, shopping habits, and even biometric information. Governor Mikie Sherrill has vowed to sign both measures if they reach her desk, as The U.S. Sun reported.
The question for consumers, and for the free market, is whether this is genuine protection or another layer of regulation from a blue-state government that already makes doing business expensive.
Senate Bill 3612 is the broader of the two measures. It would make it illegal under New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act for any company to use personalized algorithmic pricing, surveillance pricing, or any other strategy that sets product prices based on a customer's personal data. The bill defines that data broadly: browsing history, shopping history, location, biometric information, gender, and marital status all fall within its scope.
The bill also specifically prohibits retailers from using electronic shelf labels to change prices in real time based on customer data. That provision matters because Walmart has been rolling out digital price displays across its U.S. stores, and other major chains have explored similar technology.
Senate Bill 3732 is narrower in focus. It targets the grocery industry directly, both brick-and-mortar grocers and third-party grocery delivery platforms, that implement dynamic, surveillance, or personalized algorithmic pricing when selling food.
Under either bill, a first violation could carry a penalty of up to $10,000. Subsequent offenses jump to $20,000.
Governor Sherrill used her recent fiscal year 2027 budget address to frame the issue. She called hidden pricing strategies outrageous and described how some grocery stores now adjust prices based on factors like time of day or a shopper's phone browsing history. She said she planned to work alongside legislators to impose restrictions on what she described as "for-profit surveillance by tech companies."
That phrase, "for-profit surveillance", is doing a lot of political work. It casts the retailer as a predator and the shopper as a victim, which is a convenient frame for a governor who needs to justify more state intervention in a market already squeezed by inflation and regulation.
The broader grocery sector is already under stress. Multiple chains have announced store closures across the country, and consumers are watching their food budgets more closely than at any point in recent memory.
One case study behind the legislative push involves Instacart, the grocery delivery platform. A late 2025 investigation, with findings cited by the Groundwork Collaborative, uncovered price fluctuations that could potentially cost a high-volume Instacart user an extra $1,200 annually, based on projections in the report.
The numbers were striking. Nearly three-quarters of grocery items tested on Instacart showed different prices to different shoppers. Some items carried up to five different price points simultaneously. A dozen Lucerne eggs at a Safeway in Washington, D.C., for example, appeared at $3.99, $4.28, $4.59, $4.69, and $4.79, depending on who was looking.
On average, the gap between the lowest and highest prices shoppers saw for staples like cereal, pasta, and peanut butter was 13 percent. At the extreme, the highest price ran 23 percent above the lowest. Instacart basket totals varied by an average of about 7 percent for the exact same items, from the exact same locations, at the exact same time.
Instacart has since discontinued the program. The platform argued that the tests were randomized and that the $1,200 figure was a projection that did not reflect the typical customer experience. Whether or not that defense holds, the optics are terrible, and legislators noticed.
A Talker Research survey of 2,000 Americans measured how concerned people were about online retailers using personal data to set different prices for different shoppers. Twenty-nine percent said they were very concerned. Another 33 percent were somewhat concerned. That means roughly six in ten Americans expressed at least some worry about the practice.
Twenty-eight percent said they were neither concerned nor unconcerned. Just 6 percent were somewhat unconcerned, and 4 percent were very unconcerned.
Those numbers suggest real public unease, and politicians on both sides of the aisle can read a poll. The question is whether legislation is the right tool, or whether market pressure and transparency would do the job faster and with fewer unintended consequences.
National grocers like Walmart and Kroger have defended their use of digital shelf labels and other technology. They say these features allow them to offer value and a better shopping experience to customers. That's a reasonable argument on its face, Walmart's digital label rollout is framed as an efficiency upgrade, not a surveillance tool.
But there's a difference between a store updating a shelf tag to reflect a supply-chain change and a store charging you $4.79 for eggs because your phone's browsing history suggests you'll pay it. The first is operational efficiency. The second is something closer to price discrimination, and consumers have every right to find it unsettling.
The challenge for lawmakers is drawing a line that protects shoppers without strangling the kind of legitimate price competition that keeps grocery costs down. New Jersey's broader push against algorithm-driven grocery pricing is part of a nationwide trend, with lawmakers across the country working to pass laws that ban price changes based on personal data like browsing or shopping history.
Conservatives should be clear-eyed here. The instinct to regulate first and ask questions later is a hallmark of progressive governance, and New Jersey under Governor Sherrill is running true to form. Fines of $10,000 and $20,000 per offense can pile up fast, and the compliance burden will fall hardest on smaller operators who lack the legal teams of a Walmart or Kroger.
At the same time, free markets depend on honest dealing. A price is supposed to be a signal, a piece of information both buyer and seller can see. When an algorithm quietly charges one customer more than another for the same carton of eggs, at the same store, at the same hour, based on data the customer never knowingly shared, that's not a free market working. That's an information asymmetry being exploited.
The right answer probably isn't a blanket ban with heavy fines. It's transparency. Require retailers to disclose when prices are personalized. Let consumers opt out of data-driven pricing. And let the market punish companies that treat their customers like marks. With grocery prices already a top concern for American families, the last thing shoppers need is another hidden cost layered onto their weekly bill.
Much about these bills remains unclear. Which legislative committee is handling them, and on what timeline? Which specific New Jersey retailers currently use the pricing practices described? And will the final language distinguish between legitimate dynamic pricing, the kind airlines and hotels have used for decades, and the more invasive, data-driven personalization that triggered the backlash?
Governor Sherrill has made her position plain. But a vow to sign a bill is easy. Writing one that actually works, that protects consumers without punishing innovation or driving up costs, is harder.
If New Jersey's answer to every market problem is a new fine, the state will keep getting what it already has: high costs, heavy regulation, and businesses looking for the exit.