Topic
The practice of using personal data like location or purchase history to charge individual consumers different prices, now drawing privacy regulation.
Walmart says it will not charge shoppers more for mayonnaise because of tuna in their carts, the example its own 2023 shelf-label patent uses. For teams that price from cart data, the dispute shows a patent alone can put a senior executive on the defensive in public.
Reality
Connecticut's Public Act 26-64 bans the sale of precise geolocation data as of October 1, 2026. Meeting that ban and the act's surveillance-pricing rules means changing the code that sends location fields to partners and sets prices.
Reality
Walmart was granted patents in January and March covering automated markdowns and price recommendations. Reviewers at the Future of Privacy Forum and the ACLU told Fortune the filings set item prices, and Walmart says it does not price by customer.
Reality
Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the Fair Price Protection Act in July, halting new electronic shelf labels for a year while the state studies them. Walmart, which promised digital tags in all 2,300 of its US stores by the end of the year, calls the law an overreaction.
Reality
AB 2564 cleared both chambers and then ran out the clock before the Assembly could concur, leaving California retailers with the personalized pricing rules they already had and a legislature that reconvenes December 7.
Reality
The agency says it cannot ban the practice, only the undisclosed version of it. That leaves pricing and data teams owing an answer on which customer data moved a price.
Reality