The FTC proposed a new enforcement policy on personalized pricing, warning companies that hide how personal data shapes the prices shoppers see.
Page F3From§Eachthe supper edition — 29 September 2026
Pricing your Big Mac by what you personally will pay is illegal in exactly one American city
A posted price used to mean the same thing to everyone who walked in. Not any more. McDonald's pushes AI tools that suggest what a Big Mac costs based on "customer willingness to pay" — willingness, mind you, not cost — and franchisees say the gap between identical items in one neighbourhood has widened. Same bun. Different you. You will be thinking somebody has stopped this. The Federal Trade Commission has proposed an enforcement policy on personalized pricing, warning companies that hide how personal data shapes the prices shoppers see. Proposed. A warning against concealment is not a prohibition; disclose it, and charge it still. And who has banned surveillance pricing? One city. Seattle, on 23 September, seven votes to two — race, gender, employment status, internet history, chatbot conversations, all barred from setting your price ... in one city, of one country. Your price is what they think you will pay.
At the boots the pedlar looks first. The eggs are not weighed.
“They're not raising prices on everybody, see, that would show up in the news — they're grading you at the counter and charging the guy who looks like he can take it. Same burger, same block, two numbers, and the only place in America where that's flat-out against the law is Seattle. The feds' big move is asking them to be honest about it while they do it.”
“This is personalization, it's a discount engine, some people pay less — did I say less? That's not what I meant, I said nobody is forced to buy a burger. And look, the FTC hasn't banned a thing, they proposed a transparency policy, which is exactly the kind of common-sense framework we've been asking for, so what is the story here.”
The receipts
Franchisees said the algorithm has widened the gap between prices on identical items at various restaurants within the same neighborhoods, according to a report.
· 'Historic': Seattle Passes First City Ban on AI-Enabled Surveillance Pricing from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.