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# Are you paying a different price than your neighbor?
- URL: https://www.freshfromcache.com/why-your-price-is-different/
- Published: 2026-08-29T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-29T11:00:00.000Z
- Description: Congress never gave the FTC the power to ban personalized pricing. What it can do is make stores admit to it, and it is taking comments until September 18.
- Author: Joel Folgner
- Tags: Learn, Privacy, Pricing, Consumer Tech

You add something to a cart, look again the next day, and the number has changed. So you look it up, and the internet has an answer ready. The store is watching you and charging what it thinks you will pay.

Then comes the advice. Clear your cookies. Shop in a private window. Try a different ZIP code. Turn on a VPN.

Most of that does very little.

The Federal Trade Commission published its own take on August 19, and it says more about your grocery loyalty card than about your cookies.

## What the FTC said in August

The Commission published a proposed enforcement policy statement on personalized pricing. That's a price set from your personal data and what a company concludes from it, including how much it thinks you will pay and whether it thinks you will shop around.

The statement is blunt about the limits.

"Congress has not given the Commission the authority to prohibit personalized pricing in all circumstances," it says.

What the FTC can do is treat a hidden personalized price as deceptive or unfair under the FTC Act. If shoppers reasonably expect that a price does not change according to their personal data, the Commission says a business should clearly disclose that the price is personalized, the basis for it, and the kind of data behind it. Leaving that out, the statement says, is likely to break the law. The vote to publish was 2 to 0.

The Commission says the extent to which businesses currently use personalized pricing "is not well understood," and that the effects on shoppers are unclear. It also declines to say whether some personalized pricing would still be unfair even when a company discloses it.

This is a warning about hiding the practice rather than a finding that it is everywhere.

The examples the statement gives are illustrations rather than accusations, but they are specific:

- A grocery chain charging a delivery customer more for milk based on data showing several children live in the household.
- A hotel charging more to someone it believes is traveling for a funeral.
- A retailer charging more on its website when the data says the shopper is standing inside its own store or parking lot.

Prices change all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with who is looking at them.

## Three reasons the price changes

Only one of them is about you.

![Three panels comparing prices. In the first, three shoppers at the same store this morning all see $14.49. In the second, two shoppers at a city store see $12.99 while two at a rural store see $13.79. In the third, at the same store at the same second, two shoppers who are browsing see $12.99 and one shopper who is signed in sees $14.29.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7f/c4/7fc42d60-e465-4098-9ae3-9930d415307c/content/images/2026/08/diagram-three-reasons.png)

Same item, three shoppers. Only the third price was built for a person.

**Supply and demand.** Airfare, hotel rooms, rideshare surge, produce after a bad harvest. The price moves for everyone looking at that moment.

**Where you are.** Prices differ between stores, regions, and delivery zones. Prices change for taxes, rent, competition, and shipping. Everyone shopping in that store still sees the same price on the shelf.

**Who you are.** A price built from what a company knows or guesses about you personally. This is what people mean by surveillance pricing, and it is the hardest of the three to spot. A price displayed for you looks exactly like a price displayed for everybody.

Insurance and credit belong in a category of their own. They have always been priced per person, and the FTC statement carves them out for that reason. If your car insurance quote depends on your driving record, you have been buying a personalized price for years.

## What has been caught

The clearest case in American grocery shopping came from Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative in December 2025\. They recruited 437 volunteers who shopped Instacart at the same moment for the same list of items from the same stores.

In one test at a Seattle Safeway, 39 shoppers put the same 20 products in a cart at the same time. Instacart showed them five different basket totals. The totals ranged from $114.34 to $123.93, a spread of $9.59\. Only 8 percent of the group got the cheapest cart.

Across the investigation, about 75 percent of the products checked had more than one price. Per-item gaps ranged from 7 cents to $2.56 and reached 23 percent on some items. Consumer Reports estimated that kind of swing could add up to roughly $1,200 a year for a family of four.

Instacart says the tests assigned shoppers at random by product category and location, and denies using personal or demographic data to set them. Consumer Reports looked and reported that it found no evidence otherwise, while noting that its sample was too small to rule it out. The price differences are documented. Whether particular people were singled out remains unproven.

In January 2025, FTC staff reported on documents from six pricing middlemen, including Mastercard, Accenture and McKinsey, who between them worked with at least 250 clients. Staff found the data used to tailor prices can include precise location, demographics, browsing history, shopping history, what you leave sitting in a cart, and even mouse movement on a page. The report's examples of how that data gets used are hypotheticals rather than case files because the underlying documents are confidential.

Kroger has acknowledged using demographic data and purchase history in the promotions and discounts it offers loyalty members. That is disclosed, and it arrives as a discount, but it runs on the same machinery.

What nobody has shown is a grocery store charging you a different shelf price than the person standing next to you because of who you are. Digital shelf labels are spreading, and they make prices easy to change quickly. Evidence that a store used them to personalize a shelf price has not appeared.

## Your account determines your price

A store has to know it is you before it can price you.

Here is what it can use, starting with the hardest to avoid.

- **The account you sign into.** You hand it over on purpose, every visit.
- **Your loyalty number.** The same thing at the register, with a discount attached to make it easy.
- **The email address or phone number you type at checkout.** These match you to your account even when you never signed in.
- **The store's app.** It sees more than a browser does, including your location if you allowed it.
- **Your device fingerprint.** Your screen size, fonts, and settings, combined into something close to a name tag.
- **Cookies and your IP address.** The bottom of the list, and the only two the usual advice seems to talk about.

Clearing your cookies and hiding your address is the standard advice. Everything above them on that list survives the cleanse.

![A table of seven ways a store can recognize you, with three columns for a private window, clearing cookies, and a VPN. Only the cookies row is reached by a private window and by clearing cookies, and only the IP address row is reached by a VPN. The account, loyalty number, checkout email or phone, store app, and device fingerprint rows are untouched by all three.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/7f/c4/7fc42d60-e465-4098-9ae3-9930d415307c/content/images/2026/08/diagram-what-the-advice-touches.png)

Three checks out of twenty-one. The advice reaches the bottom two rows.

The FTC's own document gives an example of what it considers an adequate disclosure. The example is a price based on "previous purchases from the same retailer through the same login account."

[Our browser privacy piece](https://www.freshfromcache.com/chrome-edge-privacy-settings/) told you to block third-party trackers in Chrome and Edge, and that advice stands. It cuts the tracking that follows you between unrelated websites and feeds ad targeting. It does very little about a price attached to your account at a store you signed into.

## The usual advice, tested

**A private or incognito window.** Does almost nothing on its own. It hides that session from other people using your computer. The store still sees your IP address, your device, and your account the moment you sign in.

**Clearing cookies.** Same problem, with a cost. It signs you out of things, but fingerprinting can recognize you anyway.

**One browser for looking, another for buying.** Does nothing if you sign in on both, which is what most people do at checkout.

**Changing your ZIP code or using a VPN.** This one can move a price because location is a real input. It can also cost you money. Shipping and tax follow the address you actually enter, and some sites block VPN traffic outright. A wrong ZIP code on a delivery order gets you a failed delivery. A VPN only moves where you appear to be. Signing in gives you away.

**Shopping signed out or as a guest.** This one does help because your account is the strongest thing a store has on you. It also costs you the member price at most stores, so you are trading one for the other.

**Leaving it in the cart and waiting.** Sometimes it produces a discount email, which is the same system working in your favor. It is also how the store learns that you hesitate.

## What works

**Compare across sellers.** Whether you are likely to comparison shop is itself something these systems try to estimate. A price directed at you only works if you do not look anywhere else.

If you live somewhere with one grocery store and one internet provider, that advice does not work as well. Which is why the account and loyalty items below matter more for you.

**Buy it in the store.** Consumer Reports stated directly that shopping in person will usually mean paying what everyone else pays.

**Do the coupon math.** A targeted offer is a real discount when it beats the shelf price and beats the store down the road. Check both.

**Run the two-phone test.** Same store, same item, same time. Sign into your account on one phone and stay signed out on the other. Change one thing at a time so you know what made the difference.

**Use the rights Oregon already gave you.** The Oregon Consumer Privacy Act lets you ask a business that holds your data for:

- a copy of what it has on you
- a list of the specific companies it gave your data to
- a correction to anything wrong
- deletion of what it holds
- an opt out of selling your data or using it for targeted ads

Since January 1, 2026, covered businesses also have to honor a browser opt-out request. That request is a setting called Global Privacy Control, and it tells every site you visit not to sell your data.

Firefox has it under "Tell websites not to sell or share my data." Brave and DuckDuckGo turn it on for you. Chrome and Edge need an add-on.

If a business ignores a request, the Oregon Department of Justice takes complaints through its privacy complaint form. Its consumer hotline is 1-877-877-9392.

New York has required since November 2025 that companies label an algorithmic price with a specific line: "THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA."

Several other states have gone further with grocery-specific rules. Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley introduced a bill with Senator Ben Ray Luján this year that would ban surveillance pricing in grocery stores outright, but it has not passed.

## You have until September 18 to comment

The FTC is taking public comments on this policy statement, and the docket is open now.

1. Go to regulations.gov and search for docket **FTC-2026-1057**.
2. Open the docket and choose the comment button.
3. Write a few sentences about what you shop for, what you have seen, and what you want the agency to require. No account needed.
4. Submit it. You get a tracking number.

Comments close **September 18, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern**. As of this week, 112 people had filed.

One warning before you write. Comments are public. Your text, along with any name or contact information you put in the box, can be posted where anyone can read it. You cannot take it back afterward. Keep your address, phone number, and account numbers out of it.

One comment from one shopper will not decide this. Volume and specifics do get read.

The rest of the time, the best advice is old advice. Check another store before you buy.

## Sources

- [Federal Trade Commission, proposed enforcement policy statement on personalized pricing (File No. P034101), August 19, 2026](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc%5Fgov/pdf/p034101-ftc-enforcement-policy-statement-re-personalized-pricing-proposed-for-public-comment.pdf?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Seeks Comment on Enforcement Policy Statement Regarding Personalized Pricing,” August 19, 2026](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/08/ftc-seeks-comment-enforcement-policy-statement-regarding-personalized-pricing?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Regulations.gov, docket FTC-2026-1057 (the comment docket)](https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FTC-2026-1057?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Federal Trade Commission, surveillance pricing staff findings, January 17, 2025](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative, “Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill,” December 2025](https://www.consumerreports.org/money/questionable-business-practices/instacart-ai-pricing-experiment-inflating-grocery-bills-a1142182490/?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Oregon Department of Justice, Consumer Privacy](https://www.doj.state.or.us/consumer-protection/id-theft-data-breaches/privacy/?ref=freshfromcache.com)
- [Office of Senator Jeff Merkley, Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act of 2026](https://www.merkley.senate.gov/lujan-merkley-introduce-legislation-to-stop-grocery-price-gouging-and-lower-costs-for-americans?ref=freshfromcache.com)