Your personal data might set your grocery prices. States aim to crack down.

By: Madyson Fitzgerald

Outlets: Stateline

Published: March 27, 2026

Words: 1,569

Last Updated: 2 months ago

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One online grocery shopper got charged $3.99 for a box of Wheat Thins, while another — buying from the same store at the same time — got charged $4.89.

A consumer watchdog detected this price discrepancy during an investigation last September in Seattle. The grocery app Instacart used an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm that charged customers differently for each item by as much as 23%, Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative found. Instacart has since stopped …

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