New Jersey governor signs law banning surveillance pricing to protect shoppers | Hacker News Reader

New Jersey governor signs law banning surveillance pricing to protect shoppers

theguardian.com

45 pointsrectang8 comments

For all the analysis of data gleaned from a customer's purchase history and shipping patterns at grocery stores, I wonder what they can devine from the absence of assignable customer data, where a customer enters with phone in airplane mode and radios off, uses a loyalty card paused to fictitious data recycled semi-annually, and pays in cash only-ever, and cycles between various grocery stores so there's less of a rigid purchase pattern across store receipts. Lost/discarded background noise, or the data void that reveals itself.

So this looks broad enough that it should apply to online retailers like Amazon also.

> It does not, however, apply to loyalty programs or other discounts.

I think they should go after this stuff.

many stores charge a lot for just about everything in the store, discounting an appreciable amount for loyalty programs. Which are just data grabs.

> Sherrill’s office added that the law also pauses the rollout of new electronic shelf labels for one year while the New Jersey Innovation Authority studies their impact.

> Hailing the pause on electronic shelf labels, Ademola Oyefeso, vice-president of the labor union United Food and Commercial Workers International, said: “The law’s moratorium on the use of electronic shelf labels is an important step to ensure this technology does not harm New Jersey shoppers or workers.”

What.

The UFCW's bullshit FUD campaign of "ESLs took our jerbs!" fucking worked? They literally can't just re-skill a worker that put a paper tag up to push a button on the handheld to sync the new price down? The UFCW is an offensive LARP of a union that doesn't protect its workers actual interests.

(I'll also note that a lot of these ESLs are being used with integrated LEDs to do pick-to-light based on the tag location, so killing off ESLs means you're just screwing the consumer that's having their order shopped in store by an ecommerce employee because the employee now has to spend more time wayfinding instead of picking-to-the-flashing-light.)

Not-quite-edit continued human rant:

The UFCW honestly has just harmed an entire class of employee by banning ESLs.

E-commerce and fulfillment employees working in retail stores will be limited by this decision because it means we have removed a lot of capabilities the ESLs both created and demanded. ESLs require precise location information to be up to date at all times. Sure, a sticky label on a paper mod will point you to the same place, but the database made it quicker to check from your smart device. And when you've got a dense cluster of tags and items together, being able to have that little blinky light means you're more accurate and faster.

We've taken away all of that by banning the tags, and now we can't fulfil as many in-store orders to deliver out to the community. Guess we don't need the 3-4 (or more) "digital shoppers" we could have hired at every store (and all the delivery drivers downstream), because we can't process as many orders as we'd need to daily. Guess all the pickers get sent back to the hot, stuffy warehouses instead of out on the sales floors with the community. Amazon Wins, Again!

Whoops! Guess we've accidentally also harmed the most vulnerable shoppers as well, because the cost of grocery delivery will be higher for them because we can't save costs and time with this technology.

Recently booked a hotel on agoda. Price increased after I logged in as part of the booking process.

Opened cognito and bought at the lower price with a guest account.

Felt both smug and piss off at the 5 bucks I saved

The first chapter of Why We Buy is in trouble now..

Its only state law

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