A parent searching for a fever thermometer at 2 a.m. on their phone sees a price. A different parent, in a different zip code, searching for the same thermometer at the same moment sees a lower price. Neither knows why.
This is surveillance pricing—and it’s not theoretical. The Federal Trade Commission documented it happening, finding that companies systematically charge different prices to different people for identical products based on harvested personal data like residential location, search history, and the time someone is desperate enough to shop. Now, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has stalled a vote that would have supported state legislation banning the practice, after receiving pressure from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
- The FTC Has Documented the Harm: Federal investigators confirmed that companies use personal data—including zip code, search history, and purchase timing—to charge different consumers different prices for identical products.
- Industry Pressure Stalled a Symbolic Vote: A single email from the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce was enough to pause the Board of Supervisors’ vote supporting A.B. 2654, a bill that has already passed the California State Assembly.
- The Same Infrastructure as Cambridge Analytica: Surveillance pricing uses the same data-harvesting and behavioral inference machinery that Cambridge Analytica deployed for political manipulation—redirected from altering what you believe to altering what you pay.
- The Bill Already Protects Loyalty Programs: Despite Chamber objections, A.B. 2654 explicitly carves out loyalty discounts, delivery cost differences, and uniformly available promotions—targeting only data-driven individual price manipulation.
The stall matters because it reveals how industry groups are using familiar arguments to block privacy protections—even as government investigators have already proven the harm is real. And it exposes a structural problem that extends far beyond pricing: the systematic collection of intimate details about your life, packaged and weaponized to extract maximum profit. For readers tracking how federal privacy legislation interacts with state-level protections, this episode is a case study in how industry pressure operates at every level of government simultaneously.
What Does A.B. 2654 Actually Prohibit?
In July 2026, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors introduced a resolution supporting Assembly Bill 2654, authored by Assemblymember Chris Ward. The bill would ban surveillance pricing outright—making it illegal for retailers to charge different prices to different consumers based on personal information collected through electronic surveillance, whether that data comes directly from a company’s own tracking or purchased from third parties.
Then the Chamber of Commerce sent an email. The Board stalled the vote.
The Chamber’s objections centered on compliance concerns and questions about how the law would treat loyalty programs and discounts. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which reviewed both the Chamber’s letter and the actual text of A.B. 2654, found the bill already answers those questions with surgical precision. The law explicitly carves out three categories: price differences based solely on costs of delivery, discounts offered to consumers terminating a service, and uniformly available discounts based on criteria anyone can meet—like signing up for a mailing list or membership in a broadly defined group such as seniors.
What the bill does ban is the systematic harvesting of personal data to determine whether you personally should pay more or less.
• The FTC issued orders to eight companies in July 2024 seeking detailed information on surveillance pricing practices, signaling the scale of the investigation
• The FTC’s January 2025 issue spotlight identified intermediary firms—algorithmic middlemen hired by retailers—as a central mechanism for individualizing consumer prices
• A.B. 2654 has already cleared the California State Assembly with support from tech equity organizations, consumer advocacy groups, and civil rights coalitions
How Does the FTC’s Evidence Change the Debate?
The FTC’s findings make clear why the distinction between legitimate discounts and surveillance pricing matters. The agency’s study documented specific, real-world examples of how companies use intermediary firms to algorithmically adjust prices based on a wide range of personal data points. One documented pattern: a consumer profiled as a new parent was shown higher-priced baby thermometers on the first page of in-app search results, based on their residential zip code and the time of purchase. The government had found that companies may deliberately charge parents searching in the middle of the night—in a moment of genuine need—more money for the same product.
This is the mechanics of extraction dressed up as personalization.
Is This the Same Infrastructure Cambridge Analytica Used?
The practice echoes a darker historical precedent. During the Cambridge Analytica era, the firm harvested psychological profiles on millions of people—not to charge them different prices, but to target them with customized political messaging designed to suppress turnout or shift behavior. The underlying machinery was identical: collect intimate data at scale, build predictive models about individual psychology, then use those models to micro-target and manipulate. Surveillance pricing uses the same data-harvesting infrastructure and behavioral inference engine, but redirects it toward commerce. Instead of altering what you see politically, it alters what you pay. The goal is the same: extract maximum value from your personal vulnerabilities.
Understanding the legacy of that data-harvesting model is essential context for evaluating surveillance pricing. Cambridge Analytica demonstrated that once a behavioral inference engine exists—once you have the data pipelines, the psychographic models, and the targeting infrastructure—the application can be redirected to any domain where individual vulnerability can be monetized. Surveillance pricing is that redirection made commercial.
• Research from Carnegie Mellon, Yale, and peer-reviewed economics journals indicates that surveillance pricing produces winners and losers—and the losers tend to be those least able to switch products or least aware they’re being targeted
• The accuracy of underlying data is critical to how surveillance pricing operates, yet the practice often relies on false or outdated consumer profiles
• Consumer Reports has documented cases where major retailers built loyalty profiles on customers based on inaccurate data, raising questions about whether consumers are being penalized for data errors they cannot see or correct
Why Did Industry Pressure Work This Time?
Industry defenders of surveillance pricing argue that the practice could theoretically lead to lower prices for some consumers. The Chamber of Commerce has cited this possibility. But even if surveillance pricing occasionally produced lower prices—which the evidence suggests it often does not—the EFF’s position is uncompromising: you should never have to trade your privacy for a fair price on groceries or medicine. Privacy is a human right, not a currency to be negotiated based on income level or zip code.
What makes the San Francisco Board’s stall particularly significant is the timing. A.B. 2654 has already passed the California State Assembly. It has support from a broad coalition. The FTC has already done the investigative work. The harm is documented. The legal language is clear. Yet a single email from a Chamber of Commerce—representing business interests, not constituents—was enough to pause a symbolic vote of support from a major city’s elected representatives.
What Does San Francisco’s Stall Signal for Privacy Leadership?
San Francisco has positioned itself as a leader on privacy and surveillance issues. In 2018, it became one of the first U.S. cities to restrict government use of facial recognition technology—a move that influenced how governments worldwide approached facial recognition regulation. The Board’s stall on surveillance pricing suggests that leadership may be conditional—subject to industry pressure and the framing of business groups.
The surveillance pricing debate is fundamentally about whose interests the law serves. Should it protect the ability of companies to maximize profit by exploiting personal data they’ve collected about when you’re vulnerable, where you live, and what you need? Or should it protect your right to pay the same price as anyone else for the same product?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sent a letter to the Board asking them to reconsider and join the coalition supporting A.B. 2654. The next move belongs to the Supervisors. They can either stand with constituents whose data is being harvested and weaponized to charge them more, or they can defer to the Chamber of Commerce’s defense of a business model built on surveillance.
The outcome will signal whether San Francisco’s privacy commitments are real or performative—and whether a city that claims to lead on digital rights will actually protect them when industry pressure arrives.
