New Jersey Becomes Latest State to Pass Law Against Surveillance Pricing
Ah, New Jersey — home of Bruce Springsteen, questionable diners, and now the Fair Price Protection Act, a law that bravely declares it illegal for AI to gouge you based on your browsing history while your grocer's algorithmic overlords still note your late-night ice cream cravings. Because nothing says "we've got this" like telling algorithms they can't use your own data against you in one narrow context while the rest of your digital life remains a free-for-all. The Garden State becomes the latest to ban surveillance pricing on groceries, which means your carton of milk will cost the same as your neighbour's — assuming the milk hasn't already been priced by a non-AI system that still manages to be exorbitant.
The law bans using AI to adjust grocery prices based on individual data, which is rather like making it illegal to read someone's diary and then leaving it on the bus with a "please don't read" sign. What a relief: now we can be overcharged uniformly! The Fair Price Protection Act is a beautifully named piece of legislation that protects us from the specific injustice of personalized overcharging while the broader surveillance economy chugs along merrily, vacuuming up location data, purchase history, and your political leanings. After all, why worry about the data collection when we've got the pricing sorted?
And New Jersey is just the latest in a slow-motion parade of states each fashioning their own little legal sticking plaster. Each new law feels like putting a Band-Aid on a haemorrhage, but by all means, let's celebrate the incremental progress. Perhaps by 2040, all 50 states will have a patchwork of laws that collectively resemble a half-assed GDPR, complete with exemptions for "legitimate interests" big enough to drive an AI-powered truck through. In the meantime, groceries are still expensive, AI is still watching, and the only thing truly protected is the illusion that legislators understand the problem. But sure, let's call it a Fair Price Protection Act — because that kind of irony is the only thing we can afford.