{"id":240439,"date":"2026-05-06T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/maryland-enacts-first-of-its-kind-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-for-grocery-sales\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T19:25:15","slug":"maryland-enacts-first-of-its-kind-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-for-grocery-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/maryland-enacts-first-of-its-kind-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-for-grocery-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Enacts First-of-its-Kind Ban on Surveillance Pricing for Grocery Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maryland Enacts First-of-its-Kind Ban on Surveillance Pricing for Grocery Sales<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.hunton.com\/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog\/maryland-enacts-first-of-its-kind-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-for-grocery-sales<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-06 15:01:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.hunton.com<\/a><\/p>\n

On April 28, 2026, Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed into law House Bill 895, the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act (the \u201cAct\u201d), which regulates certain personalized pricing practices used by grocery stores and grocery delivery services. Notably, the Act places substantive limits on how covered businesses may use consumers\u2019 personal data in setting food prices and on certain uses of personal data of members of legally protected classes.<\/p>\n

The Act takes effect on October 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

Scope of the Act<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Act applies to \u201cfood retailers\u201d and \u201cthird-party delivery service providers.\u201d A \u201cfood retailer\u201d is defined as a merchant operating a business establishment with at least 15,000 square feet that sells food exempt from Maryland sales and use tax under Tax-General \u00a7 11-206(c) (i.e., grocery stores). A \u201cthird-party delivery service provider\u201d refers to a business that, as a service to consumers, arranges for the delivery of food that qualifies for exemption from sales and use tax under the same provision.<\/p>\n

Prohibition on Dynamic Pricing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Act prohibits food retailers and third-party delivery service providers from using dynamic pricing to set the price of groceries, or to set a higher price for groceries for specific consumers. \u201cDynamic pricing\u201d means \u201coffering or setting a personalized price for a good or service that is specific to a consumer based on the consumer\u2019s personal data, regardless of whether the seller collected or purchased the personal data.\u201d (The Act incorporates the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act\u2019s definition of \u201cpersonal data,\u201d meaning information linked or reasonably linkable to an identified or identifiable consumer.)<\/p>\n

The Act separately prohibits using the personal data of members of legally protected classes to offer, advertise, or sell consumer goods or services where such use results in a consumer being denied or withheld an accommodation, advantage, or privilege provided to others.<\/p>\n

Key Exceptions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maryland Enacts First-of-its-Kind Ban on Surveillance Pricing for Grocery Sales https:\/\/www.hunton.com\/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog\/maryland-enacts-first-of-its-kind-ban-on-surveillance-pricing-for-grocery-sales Publish Date: 2026-05-06 15:01:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hunton.com\/privacy-and-cybersecurity-law-blog\/assets\/images-t1778093922\/206510.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[196],"class_list":["post-240439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy","tag-maryland-online-data-privacy-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240441,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240439\/revisions\/240441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}