How to Beat Surveillance Pricing Before It Bleeds You Dry — SkimNews

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- Lindsay Owens, CEO of Groundwork Collaborative and former economic policy adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren, published the book "Gouged: The End of a Fair Price and What That Means for Your Wallet" and testified on surveillance pricing for Senator Josh Hawley.
- Owens requested all data McDonald's keeps on her app interactions and received a 515-page dossier estimating a zero percent chance she'd ever stop being a customer.
- The fixed-price norm dates to the late 1800s when John Wanamaker tagged items at his Philadelphia department store, Owens said.
- Walmart's Sparky AI-driven shopping cart totals run 35 percent higher than non-Sparky carts, according to Owens.
- Groundwork Collaborative previously exposed Instacart's A/B tests treating millions of Americans as guinea pigs without their knowledge.
- Legislation cracking down on surveillance and algorithmic pricing has been signed into law in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland, with Owens calling it a nonpartisan issue.
Why it matters: Three states — Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland — have already enacted surveillance-pricing laws, with Owens having testified for both Senator Warren and Senator Hawley, framing this as bipartisan. Her concrete ammunition: a 515-page McDonald's data dossier on her own shopping and Walmart Sparky carts running 35% higher than non-Sparky totals.
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