Portland shoppers hoping for quick rules against data-driven grocery pricing will have to wait a bit longer. The City Council postponed a vote on a proposed ordinance banning the practice until January 2027, after a last-minute push to send the measure back to committee failed on a 9-3 vote this past Wednesday.
The proposal would ban retailers and third-party delivery services, such as Instacart, from using shoppers’ personal information to set prices, according to OregonLive. It would also cap how often stores can raise a product’s regular price, limiting increases to once per day. Under council records reviewed by Portland’s civic records platform, Councilmembers Morillo, Avalos and Green voted to send the item back to committee for more work, while nine of their colleagues — including Clark, Zimmerman, Smith, Kanal, Pirtle-Guiney, Ryan, Koyama Lane, Novick and Dunphy — voted no, leaving the measure postponed to a future first reading instead.
What the Revised Proposal Would and Wouldn't Do
The ordinance, first presented to a council committee in September, has been through several rounds of revisions. The latest version would let stores offer the same discount to all rewards members, or divide members into groups based on past purchases, as long as everyone within a group gets the identical deal, per the same OregonLive report. What stores could not do is use other personal information — like income or location — to decide which rewards discounts a shopper sees.
Enforcement would fall to Portland’s city administrator, who could investigate complaints, demand records from retailers, and seek fines of up to $7,500 per violation, with each shopper charged an unlawful price counted separately. Notably, the proposal would not let shoppers sue retailers directly over violations — enforcement would run entirely through the city. If the council eventually approves the ordinance, it would take effect July 1, 2027.
A Councilmember Says Loopholes Remain
Councilmember Angelita Morillo, who made the failed motion to send the item back to committee, said the changes represent a step forward but still leave loopholes for coupons and other discounts, the outlet reported. She warned that a store could use software to assign shoppers coupons worth different amounts while still technically advertising the same base price — a workaround critics say undercuts the spirit of the ban.
Councilmember Eric Zimmerman, who introduced the ordinance, has said his office worked with UFCW Local 555 and the Northwest Grocery Retail Association to draft it. Those two groups had earlier pushed for a version that exempted store rewards-program discounts entirely, before the current language narrowed what kinds of personal data could factor into those discounts. In August, Zimmerman told OregonLive in a separate report that he knew of no Portland retailers currently using surveillance pricing but wanted to get ahead of the technology before it took hold locally. A Portland ordinance document reviewed through the city's own records similarly notes that such pricing tools have not been commonly documented among local retailers, framing the measure as preventive rather than reactive.
How Portland Compares to Other Cities and States
Portland isn’t writing on a blank slate. Seattle already passed a law banning surveillance pricing at large grocery stores, becoming what OregonLive describes as the first U.S. city to do so, with rules that also limit how stores use shoppers’ personal information for rewards-program discounts. Maryland became the first state to restrict personalized pricing in grocery stores, and Connecticut followed with its own restrictions on retailers and delivery services plus disclosure requirements, according to the same report.
Other states have taken different approaches. New Jersey gave shoppers the right to sue retailers directly over violations and imposed a one-year moratorium on new electronic shelf labels — a sharper tool than what Portland is currently considering. In New York, lawmakers approved a bill restricting personalized pricing that was awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature, per Grocery Dive. Colorado Governor Jared Polis vetoed a similar bill that would have barred companies from using consumer data to generate individualized prices, the trade outlet noted. Lawmakers in at least 11 states considered similar bills in 2026, according to Stateline, and Oregon legislators are expected to introduce their own statewide legislation addressing data-driven pricing in 2027, per the Grants Pass Tribune.
Why Regulators Are Paying Attention
The push for guardrails traces back to a Federal Trade Commission study that found companies can use shoppers’ locations, browsing histories and buying habits to tailor prices and discounts. In August, the FTC warned that businesses could use that same personal information to charge different prices based on how much they think a given customer is willing to pay. A Data for Progress survey cited during an Oregon legislative hearing found that 75 percent of consumers considered such pricing practices unfair, the Grants Pass Tribune reported, even as researchers cited in that same hearing estimated individualized pricing systems could unlock an estimated $70 billion in additional growth for companies.
The stakes aren’t purely theoretical. A Consumer Reports investigation found that prices for identical grocery items on Instacart differed by as much as 23 percent from one customer to the next, according to NW Labor Press, which reported that Instacart said it would halt the practice. The same outlet cited an AFL-CIO Tech Institute report warning that electronic shelf labels could let retailers raise prices during peak shopping times or in response to external conditions, such as hiking allergy medication prices when pollen counts climb.
For now, Portland shoppers will have to wait until January to see whether the council moves forward with its own version of these protections, or whether further amendments reshape the proposal before any vote is taken.
