It’s Saturday morning and you’re out of eggs, milk and cereal. You open your favorite delivery app and add them to your cart. What you don’t know is that the price you’re seeing is higher than what a person down the street is seeing for the same items from the same store at the same moment. Not because of some special discount or one-off coupon, but because an algorithm decided what you, specifically, should pay, based on your purchase history or personal traits.
That’s surveillance pricing. It’s creepy, it’s wrong and it should be banned.
Many lawmakers agree, and they’re moving fast. New legislation is being debated across the country, with over 50 bills having been introduced across 26 states in 2026 alone.
DoorDash supports the core goal behind this push: ban companies from individualizing base prices of items based on a consumer’s personal data — that’s surveillance pricing and it’s unfair. We don’t allow surveillance pricing on DoorDash.
Lawmakers are right to address this problem, but Seattle’s approach is all wrong. While motivated by legitimate concerns about predatory pricing, Mayor Katie Wilson’s Fair Pricing and Transparency Ordinance is drafted so broadly that it would eliminate or severely restrict many of the discount programs consumers value most. Rather than targeting harmful individualized price increases, it would actually raise prices for most consumers by eliminating many popular promotions and loyalty discounts they rely on to make ends meet. This won’t just impact big corporations, but it will also hurt small and local businesses that use targeted promotions and advertising to attract new customers.
So let’s get into the details. Many retailers offer discounts to customers who want to use them and would actually benefit. That personalization typically relies on purchase history so that a grocer doesn’t offer 50% off cat food to a customer with three dogs.
This proposal would potentially restrict businesses from using purchase history to offer discounts to customers unless they are already enrolled in a loyalty program. Even if it’s not intended to stop personalized discounts outside of loyalty programs, this could deter many companies from doing so. That would likely mean many fewer discounts being offered to casual shoppers. Combined with the significant potential penalties, these confusing and narrow exceptions may lead businesses to just forgo personalized discounts altogether.
This bill will also harm small businesses. While it seems like the mayor intended to protect small businesses by limiting the definition of “covered retailer” to grocery businesses with 20 or more locations, it’s not that simple. A small grocer could still be indirectly covered by the bill if it works with a larger company that is covered, like a delivery platform, to offer personalized discounts. Small businesses depend on targeted discounts too, sometimes more than larger retailers. Targeting helps them use their budget for promos and discounts more efficiently. This is crucial for a small-business owner trying to find new loyal customers, and this bill would prevent them from doing that if they do go through a larger company like a delivery platform.
Seattle continues to be the most expensive city and market in the United States for ordering takeout and food delivery.
Times are already tough. Just 12% of Seattle businesses are earning enough to cover their expenses, and more than 67% of restaurants say that they’re under more financial stress now than in 2020 and 2021. Seattle continues to be the most expensive city and market in the United States for ordering takeout and food delivery. Just last week, Mayor Wilson announced several executive orders to support the economy and streamline city government to make it easier for small businesses to operate. But this surveillance pricing ordinance would make things more costly and less competitive for Seattle small businesses.
This is not the time to make life more expensive for Seattle residents, or to turn the focus of the City Council toward banning one of the most common ways people save money. We know that these discounts aren’t a rounding error — they add up to very real savings for consumers. In 2025, consumers saved more than $12 billion from discounts and promos on DoorDash Marketplace in the U.S. Consumers in Seattle saved nearly $40 million from discounts and promos on DoorDash Marketplace. That’s a very real impact on the statewide economy, and family checkbooks.
In California, lawmakers recognized this financial threat to families, and voted against a sweeping surveillance pricing bill that would have imposed restrictive new rules on personalized discounts and promotions. Meanwhile, legislators in Maryland and Connecticut passed narrowly tailored laws that were careful to protect the same kinds of discounts that Seattle’s proposal would restrict. Thoughtful legislators acknowledge that enacting overly broad policy can cause more harm than good, and Seattle should follow their lead.
Surveillance pricing shouldn’t be allowed. We support drawing a bright line to prohibit companies from personalizing how much people pay for products like a carton of eggs or a gallon of milk. But far-reaching and vaguely drafted proposals that also threaten promotional discounts aren’t right — especially not right now. Let’s work together to ban deception, not deals, and focus on what really matters to Seattle families.
