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Two new bills would prevent companies in Minnesota from using so-called surveillance-based pricing — using personal data like browsing history or financial circumstances to tailor prices to individual people.

 found Instacart has used artificial intelligence to allow grocery retailers to charge shoppers different prices for the same purchases. A 

 found Target customers in Minnesota were shown higher prices on the Target app if they were physically inside or nearby the store.

Some Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota argue such practices should be banned because they make prices difficult to compare and open up consumers to potential discrimination based on their income, identity or location.

, prompted significant debate in the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee Wednesday.

“Companies have been gobbling up all the information about us,” said Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, the chief sponsor of one of the bills. “They're buying it, they're scraping it, and they are putting billions of dollars in investments in pricing technology and experiments to determine how much we all are willing to pay for something, and then they are setting a personal price for you accordingly.”

Business representatives, including Will Hagen with the Minnesota Retailers Association, testified against certain provisions in the bills, in particular a ban on electronic shelf labels. 

“The impacts of these bills should not unintentionally eliminate discounts, increase operational costs or restrict tools that help retailers deliver savings to customers,” Hagen said.

Hagen also questioned how pervasive the problem of surveillance pricing actually is.

Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, urged her colleagues to get out ahead of this technology, whether it’s being used extensively in Minnesota stores yet or not.

“Once these new technologies are in place, we never catch them, right? We're seeing that with crypto. We're seeing that with AI. We see that with drones, pick your technology,” Finke said. “We're told it's not happening, we don't end up regulating it, and then we spend 10 years trying to catch up to technology that is out of control.”

Republican representatives voiced concern over unintended consequences of the bills. The committee’s co-chair, Rep. Tim O’Driscoll, R-Sartell, said he hopes to see some amendments drafted. 

“We certainly are interested in trying to get to a solution. But I think we all agree that the bills need some additional work,” O’Driscoll said.

No vote was taken and legislators said they plan to continue to work on the bills.

Correction (March 9, 2026): An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed which companies used AI-enabled experiments to charge consumers different prices. This story has been updated to correctly identify the company responsible for the varying prices, Instacart. An Instacart spokesperson said the company did not use "personal, demographic, or user-level behavioral information" in its online pricing experiments.

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Two new bills would prevent companies in Minnesota from using so-called surveillance-based pricing — using personal data like browsing history or financial circumstances to tailor prices to individual people.


Companies might charge you more than your neighbor. Some Minnesota lawmakers want to stop them

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