Ruben Gallego

Newsroom • In the News Tuesday, January 20, 2026 KJZZ: Retailers use personal data to charge some people more. Gallego wants algorithmic pricing to stop San Dingman [1/20/26] Read the article here. SAM DINGMAN: Last month, Sen. Ruben Gallego introduced the One Fair Price Act, a bill which his office says “would prevent companies from setting individualized prices based on consumers personal data and allow small businesses to better compete with large companies on the quality of their product, not the use of exploitive pricing practices.” When Gallego visited the studio recently, I asked him for an example of the type of exploitation he thinks this legislation is necessary to address. RUBEN GALLEGO: For example, you know, with the advent of basically being able to buy your tickets online, social media, and now with AI being very ever present, you can basically go online to be talking about the fact you just had a newborn or, you know, a grandson was born, and then you start looking for airline tickets. That airline ticket will be able to figure out that you are very excited about going to, for example, Chicago to see your grandson. … And instead of pricing it based on the supply and demand of seats, the price it on the fact that they know that you are very excited to go. And they’ll figure out: What is your price point? So you’re they’re going to keep rising the price until they figure out like how much they can maximize profits out of you. That is not capitalism, that is being predatory. DINGMAN: So let me make sure people really understand this. Because I appreciate that example you gave and I think this can sound a little conceptual to some people. I can go on Instagram and I can say, I have a new grandson in Chicago. … Can’t wait to see him. … Thinking that I’m just talking to my Instagram followers about this. I’m actually talking to say, Delta Airlines, unwittingly. Who, the next time I go to the Delta Airlines website and try to buy a ticket to Chicago, they will somehow know that I am particularly excited to get to Chicago, and they might tick my price up a little bit for the privilege of getting me there. GALLEGO: Exactly. Now, when you brought up Delta, Delta actually did say this at one of their corporate shareholder meetings. And the CEO said that they’re going to particularly institute this type of pricing, if I remember correctly, to find the particular pain point that someone’s willing to pay. DINGMAN: They use that language, pain point. GALLEGO: They use that language, yes. Now they have since retracted. But you know, when you’re saying this to as a CEO, when you’re saying to your corporate shareholders, you know, you’re basically saying that this is the way we’re going to maximize profits. As you know, the CEOs have to maximize profits, but this is where the government has to step in, because we want to make sure that the consumer has just as much of a chance at getting the best price as the company’s. DINGMAN: Elsewhere in the conversation, Sen. Gallego referenced a recent investigation by Consumer Reports, which looked at the way this type of pricing has been used by grocery apps. They wrote up their findings for an article published in late December, and the piece sent shockwaves through the grocery industry. Consumer Reports investigators focused primarily on the app Instacart, and revealed that the company was using algorithmic pricing to experiment with the cost of common items. After my conversation with Sen. Gallego, I spoke with the lead reporter on the investigation, Derek Kravitz. DEREK KRAVITZ: The capabilities are seemingly endless. We actually looked at their patents, Instacart and the small AI company they acquired, Eversight. And the patents made clear that they can sort of hoover up all of this personal data about you and create this crazy-good personal dossier. We’ve actually receive some of those from consumers where you live, your phone number, your email address, but also how much money you make, how many people are in your household, whether you’re married. DINGMAN: And so from a practical standpoint, what this means is that an app like Instacart, which, for people who don’t know, is a virtual grocery shopping app. I might be shopping for bagels — and I don’t know why I picked bagels, but I love bagels. So I might put some bagels into my shopping cart on Instacart and somebody in the apartment next to mine might be adding the same bag of bagels from the same store to their shopping cart. And we might be looking at different prices. KRAVITZ: Yes. And generally speaking, you know, all the prices through Instacart and many other e-commerce platforms are constantly being toggled and tweaked and changed in order to find

Maryland gets it. Your personal data isn’t a weapon to make you pay more. My federal ban on surveillance pricing would make this illegal nationwide. Time to protect every American from being exploited.

The price is right…or is it AI?? I just introduced the first bill to ban this kind of unfair surveillance pricing. Because big companies shouldn’t be able to use your personal data to charge you more. youtu.be/74A2d-M7zMU?...

Vote: YEA on Blackburn Amdt. No. 2814; To strike the section relating to support for artificial intelligence. - On the Amendment <measure>S.Amdt. 2814</measure>