California’s Surveillance Pricing Bill Misses Deadline to Advance to Gov. Newsom’s Desk

Legislation in California to restrict surveillance pricing passed both the Assembly and State Senate but still failed to cross the finish line late Monday in order to head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. The bill was required to be sent back to the Assembly for a concurrence vote by midnight but failed to meet that deadline on the last day of the legislative session, according to KALW. California Assembly Bill 2564 is one of at least a dozen bills that’s been considered across the country this year to restrict surveillance pricing, the practice of using personal data acquired about customers to set prices that can be higher than prices paid by other people looking at the same product. Retailers prefer terms like personalized pricing or bespoke pricing over surveillance pricing because they argue that they will often use personal data to actually lower prices for consumers. The Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden used the term surveillance pricing, and a study on the practice was killed by President Donald Trump’s FTC shortly after he took office for a second time in 2025. Trump’s FTC uses the term personalized pricing. The California Retailers Association celebrated the failure of the bill to advance to Newsom’s desk, calling it “overly broad” and warning that it would imperil “individualized discounts” and rewards programs. “California consumers deserve protection from the use of their personal information to unfairly charge them higher prices. We have said that from the beginning, and we continue to believe the Legislature can and should address that issue,” Rachel Michelin, President and CEO of the California Retailers Association, said in a statement to Gizmodo. “But we should not protect consumers from higher prices by putting at risk the discounts and rewards programs they affirmatively choose and use to save money.” Retailers have frequently brought up loyalty programs and senior discounts as potential victims of surveillance pricing bans, but most states have sought to exempt those types of things when tailoring their own state bills. Maryland became the first state in the country to ban surveillance pricing in April but it was very narrowly targeted, only targeting grocery stores. Activists complained that the law had enormous loopholes and was basically toothless. California State Senator Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat, spoke Monday in support of the bill before it ultimately failed to advance. Blakespear told the hypothetical story of a new dad searching for a baby thermometer online late at night and how that kind of information could be weaponized by retailers to charge the highest possible price. “The main focus of conversations and the opposition to this bill is about discounts,” said Blakespear. “And the reality is that companies have offered discounts and sales and coupons for most of modern history without surveillance pricing.” Blakespear went on to say that AB 2564 won’t stop them: “What will stop is companies using information that they’ve bought or gathered about us to set customized prices that can be inflated and then artificially discounted.” Polling from GBAO Strategies, distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union which opposes surveillance pricing, indicates that a majority of Americans (68%) are worried about surveillance pricing contributing to higher grocery costs. Just 5% of Americans believe surveillance pricing is used to lower costs. Surveillance pricing has been one of the rare issues to cross partisan lines when it comes to concerns facing the American public. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing last month about the issue where both Republicans and Democrats alike expressed concern that consumers were getting screwed by the practice. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, went so far as to call it “one of the biggest scams in American history,” expressing particular concern about the way that AI can be used to optimize the highest price for a given consumer based on their data. The next California legislative session starts Dec. 7 though it’s unclear whether the surveillance pricing bill will get another chance at life. If it does, there’s a very good chance Newsom won’t be governor anymore, since his term ends in early January. Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are running to be the next governor, with Becerra in a commanding lead, according to virtually every poll. For its part, the California Retailers Association doesn’t seem to want the bill and all the work already done on it to be completely scrapped before the next legislative session. “Our hope is that next year we can begin with the areas where there is genuine agreement rather than starting over,” Michelin said in a statement. “If personal information is used to unfairly charge a consumer more, California should address it. If it is being used to provide a legitimate discount that a consumer has chosen to receive, California should not make that discount harder to offer. We look forward to continuing those conversations next session.” Anything can happen between now and December and it’s entirely possible that legislators in California have much larger fish to fry by then, given the trajectory of the country under President Trump. The midterm elections are in November and it seems Trump is trying to rig things in a way that would likely lead to full blown civil war in any normal country. However, the U.S. isn’t a normal country. Did you see the U.S. Mint put a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it into circulation Wednesday? They’re reportedly already sold out.