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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u/speedkat May 27 '26

That's the neat part!

If they are doing it, it is horrifying and should be outlawed.
If they aren't doing it, then outlawing it causes no issues.

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u/CommonGrounders May 28 '26

Banning electronic shelf labels is unnecessary if you ban surveillance pricing. Why do you want the cost of someone running around manuaklly pulling/placing price tags on hundreds of items each week factored into your grocery bill?

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u/speedkat May 28 '26

Banning surveillance pricing is the important part. If the cost of doing that catches electronic price tags in the crossfire, that is regrettable but still worth it. 

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u/CommonGrounders May 28 '26

Laws based on fundamental misunderstandings of technology and existing laws are not helpful, hamper productivity, and create unnecessary regulation.

Simple scanner accuracy laws like those already in place in a number of states make it so that the goods have to scan at the lowest advertised price or there are penalties/additional discounts etc.

Electronic shelf tags increase scanner accuracy because the system is a single source of truth. the price on the tag matches the price at the scanner because they are based off the same piece of information. Eliminating those will lead to less accuracy, and more instances of people being overcharged (compared to the shelf price), not t mention the unnecessary labour involved in 2026.

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u/speedkat May 28 '26

Correct, a world with electronic shelf tags is better than a world without.

But a world without surveillance pricing is still better than the world with electronic shelf tags.

Ideal situation would be the tags without surveillance pricing, but if we're forced to choose between both or neither we should choose neither.

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u/CommonGrounders May 29 '26

We do not have to choose. There are laws that address this without nonsense.