Sponsors (92)
Official title: To prohibit retail food stores from price gouging and engaging in surveillance-based price setting practices, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 12, 2025 by Rashida Tlaib · Last progress August 12, 2025
The bill strengthens consumer protections against surveillance-based and opaque pricing and tightens controls on biometric and personal data use, but it does so at the cost of significant compliance burdens, legal uncertainty, and reduced availability of some personalized discounts that may raise costs or reduce convenience for shoppers and retailers.
All shoppers are better protected from surveillance-driven or opaque price discrimination because the bill bans certain surveillance-based price setting and defines key terms to enable enforcement.
All consumers gain stronger controls over biometric and personal data use at retail stores: explicit consent is required for biometric ID and limits are placed on secondary uses (e.g., targeted ads), reducing commercial surveillance.
Shoppers (including students, veterans, and other eligible groups) retain access to disclosed group discounts and some personalized discounts based on purchase history, preserving common savings programs while curbing secret profiling.
Retailers (especially small and multi-store operators) will face substantial compliance and operational costs—changes to pricing systems, signage, printed labels, and legal compliance—that are likely to be passed on to consumers through higher prices.
Businesses and states will face legal and regulatory uncertainty from broad or ambiguous definitions and new FTC rulemaking, creating administrative burdens, litigation risk, and uneven enforcement during and after the rulemaking period.
Some consumers—particularly low-income shoppers who relied on app-based targeted coupons or personalized pricing—may lose access to customized discounts, reducing savings for those households.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Bans grossly excessive grocery prices and surveillance-based personalized pricing, restricts electronic shelf labels in large stores, requires FTC rulemaking, and creates enforcement tools and damages for violations.
Prohibits retail food stores from charging "grossly excessive" prices and from using surveillance-based personalized pricing, requires FTC rules to define those terms, and bans electronic shelf labels in large physical grocery stores. Creates private and state enforcement tools, authorizes $5 million for implementation, and preserves stronger state consumer protections.