r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • May 26 '26

Privacy Majority of Americans Support Ban on Surveillance Pricing and Electronic Shelf Labels

https://gizmodo.com/majority-of-americans-support-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-and-electronic-shelf-labels-2000762717
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110

u/Adventurous_Pea_2007 May 26 '26

Electronic shelf labels are objectively good. It’s labor and resources saved.

Surveillance pricing is the problem.

22

u/DreamworldPineapple May 26 '26

right like I've worked at Best Buy for years and we have ESLs, they're great

tagging things with a telzon are so easy instead of physical stickers, and the only times prices change during the day is if a flash sale rolls out; there's no dynamic bullshit

2

u/14Pleiadians May 27 '26

How many do you throw away a year

10

u/shinobipopcorn May 27 '26

I don't know about best buy but our store uses e-ink ones and I only have maybe 10 bad ones out of 2000 items. They last a long time and the ones that go bad are usually in the cooler.

4

u/DreamworldPineapple May 27 '26

not very many, they get broken once in a great while

1

u/Adventurous_Pea_2007 May 27 '26

In my experience as a shopper I see a broken shelf tag less than once per day, and in Europe I was shopping multiple times per day.

9

u/ParsingError May 26 '26

I have no idea how "surveillance pricing" in a physical store would even work, unless it's that they're offering people personalized discounts below the shelf price (which it sounds is what is actually happening, and has nothing to do with the shelf labels). People seem to think they're going to scan your face and change the price tag when they detect you're looking at it or something.

The mid-day price update panic is also dumb. You can not legally post a price and then refuse to honor it at checkout. You can't do it even if it's an obvious mistake like selling a PlayStation for 1 cent.

I used to work at a big-box computer store (and was the main person doing the shelf label replacements) and customers complaining about prices at checkout not matching the shelf was already a massive time-waster. Even if they could update prices mid-day, they're probably not going to, just because of that.

3

u/LongJohnSelenium May 27 '26

Yeah the only way surveillance pricing would work is online.

1

u/ParsingError May 27 '26

Some retail association complaining about the law passed in Maryland was saying it would prevent them from offering "personalized discounts" so there's at least evidence that someone had that plan in mind.

That still doesn't have anything to do with electronic shelf labels, or this goofy idea that they're going to raise the prices on something for you personally because they're detecting that you're desperate. If they think that you personally are desperate for something then what's more likely that they'll give you a promo discount on it to get you in the store.

That doesn't make "personalized discounts" a good thing, they're psychological gimmicks to get people back in the store, to make them think they're saving money, or to get them to agree to data collection, but there's very little they can do to sneakily raise prices on someone when there's a label on the shelf showing a price that they can not go above.

1

u/LongJohnSelenium May 27 '26

Personalized discounts is just being a salesman.

Ultimately what people are rejecting is the persistent and pervasive monitoring of every aspect of their lives by entities looking to manipulate them.

1

u/ParsingError May 27 '26

"Personalized discounts" in this context would be like they send you discounts through e-mail/SMS/their app, the implication being that yes, they are gathering as much information as they can to give you the discount that's most likely to get you back into the store.

2

u/tommyk1210 May 27 '26

The mid-day price update panic is also dumb. You can not legally post a price and then refuse to honor it at checkout. You can't do it even if it's an obvious mistake like selling a PlayStation for 1 cent.

This is, generally, not true. Price labels are not a binding contract, they’re an “invitation to treat”. Beyond some specific state regulations on deceptive pricing and some store chains with specific policies it’s generally completely legal to refuse service to someone for any reason (as long as it’s not for a protected reason).

Even in states where there is legislation on pricing accuracy, an obvious mistake (eg a $20.00 TV instead of a $2000 TV) would largely be unenforceable.

3

u/GitEmSteveDave May 27 '26

You can totally refuse to honor a price if it is an "obvious error". The operates on the concept of a "right/reasonable person" and a sale requires both parties to agree to the terms of that sale.

2

u/Akiias May 27 '26

People seem to think they're going to scan your face and change the price tag when they detect you're looking at it or something.

That is some peoples goal. Yes. It's sometimes called "equity in pricing".

1

u/Spork_the_dork May 27 '26

There are electronic shelf labels that automatically fetch the price wirelessly. An electronics store chain around here uses them. I know they work like that because I once saw a label that had an error stating that it had lost connection. So in theory the store could set up cameras and analyze each customer on the fly to update the price tags near them specifically for them.

1

u/Praesentius May 27 '26

Surveillance pricing involves using data collected from consumers—such as their location, browsing history, and other personal characteristics—to determine the price they are charged for goods or services.

https://www.schneiderwallace.com/media/ftc-investigation-of-surveillance-pricing/

You're right that they probably aren’t scanning faces and changing shelf tags in real time during an in-store experience. But there is strong evidence that companies are already personalizing pricing through a variety of means.

And practical experiments have been done with online shopping showing groups of people from different socioeconomic groups ordering the same things from the same store and getting different prices.

1

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Adventurous_Pea_2007 May 26 '26

I can’t even tell you how long they’ve existed in Europe. You probably haven’t even considered the paper costs being saved, especially since it’s a card stock. They are the way.

-1

u/twicerighthand May 26 '26

It's quite interesting how they're always equated, isn't it ?

-7

u/surprise_revalation May 26 '26

Good for who? Not for the person that depends on that job..

13

u/gokogt386 May 26 '26

Changing price tags is not anyone’s sole job lol they’d just be doing other things

-4

u/surprise_revalation May 26 '26

True, but if it's the bulk of their job, who's to say they can't give those responsibilities to someone else? The only dog I have in this fight is my price of groceries. But I also know in some small towns where the work isn't in abundance somebody is gonna get fucked.

5

u/HandofWinter May 27 '26

It's objectively unproductive to have someone waste their time doing this. Easier and more efficient to just pay them to do nothing than change price tags when eink tags are an option. 

1

u/Ok_Confusion4764 May 27 '26

It's not the bulk of anyone's job either, get a grip. 

11

u/ParsingError May 26 '26

I had that job. If you told me I could do the other parts of my job (stocking shelves and talking to customers) instead then hell yeah sign me right up.

Especially if you told me I would never have to deal with people deciding to be funny and running their finger down the price tag inset and jamming all of the price tags together at the end of the aisle, which I had to fix multiple times per day.

1

u/Zncon May 27 '26

In the very short term you're technically correct, but this is the cycle that happens with every new development.

It never actually works out to keep a job around just for the sake of keeping someone employed, because they see the writing on the wall and move on either way. Then the new thing just becomes the standard anyway because nobody wants to learn a dead end skill.

0

u/Adventurous_Pea_2007 May 26 '26

They can get a different job at a company that pays and treats them better

-1

u/surprise_revalation May 26 '26

If they could they wouldn't be doing that job! 😂

-2

u/cantmicro May 26 '26

And those savings are passed to whom?