Hunton Retail Law Resource

The Federal Trade Commission has joined a handful of states that are taking aim at surveillance pricing.  The FTC recently announced a draft enforcement policy related to personalized pricing, which it defines as “the use of personal data to set prices according to the amount that a company believes an individual consumer is willing to spend.”

Maryland’s Protection From Predatory Pricing Act, signed on April 28, 2026 and effective October 1, 2026, is the first state law to directly prohibit certain personalized grocery pricing practices by grocery stores and third-party grocery delivery services, barring the use of consumers’ personal data to set individualized prices or charge higher prices for groceries and restricting discriminatory uses of data relating to legally protected classes. Enforced exclusively by the Maryland Attorney General, the Act includes a guaranteed 45-day cure period, no private right of action, and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, or $25,000 for repeat violations, and it reflects a growing national trend toward tighter regulation of surveillance and algorithmic pricing.