Colorado House passes bill to limit surveillance pricing and wage setting

https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/surveillance-pricing-wage-setting/

by jprs • 4 months ago

127 63 4 months ago

seems incomplete. There's no point in banning anything, if anyone can just do something banned, flout the law, with no consequences.

and -at least in this article- the consequences seem noticeably missing

EDIT: Althought the article does not include it, the bill (linked from the article) does.

adestefan2• 4 months ago

It’s right at the top of the linked bill.

The attorney general or a district attorney may bring a civil action on behalf of the state against a person that violates the prohibition against individualized price or wage setting based on surveillance data to seek the imposition of civil penalties. In addition, a person aggrieved by a violation of the prohibition specified in the bill may bring a civil action on behalf of themself or a group of similarly situated persons to restrain further violations and to recover damages, costs, and reasonable attorney fees. A violation of the prohibition against individualized price setting or individualized wage setting is a deceptive trade practice under the "Colorado Consumer Protection Act".

pnw• 4 months ago

Allowing private right of action means this will be weaponized by attorneys in the same way the ADA has. Just scanning the bill, any small business in the US using dynamic pricing, targeted discounts or "VIP pricing" on their website would be open to suits from Colorado residents. The definitions are extremely broad and there is no safe harbor for small companies either. Damages are also uncapped and apparently Colorado allows treble damages for CCPA violations.

wat1000010• 4 months ago

The article links to the law. Looks like this is an addition to the existing law about unfair or deceptive trade practices. That allows for a civil penalty of up to $20,000 per person or transaction involved.

jrochkind12• 4 months ago

Republican Rep. Chris Richardson, an Elbert County Republican, argued that the bill is too broad and could regulate standard analytic usage in the workplace, such as a human resources software that recommends a pay band for employees based on performance.

He does not think this is is just selling it further? Oh no, it might prohibit software automatically determining my wages, how could we even have a society if we don't let computers figure out the least they can pay me without me quitting.

thegreatpeter• 4 months ago

“I absolutely agree that consumers and wage earners should not be exploited by the use of their data,” he said. “But it’s still overly broad and it’s still overly vague in very important parts. And I believe it’s overly simplistic in its definition of wage setting.”

kelnos2• 4 months ago

That's standard conservative speak for "don't interfere with business practices". "Overly broad" is just a way to shut down discussion.

tzs2• 4 months ago

How do you get from "pay band [...] based on performance" to "least they can pay me without quitting"?

cobertos• 4 months ago

Why would corporate software be incentivized to recommend a pay band any higher than the least the employee would take? The incentives are not aligned

LocalH• 4 months ago

current and historical capitalist trends, that's how

jrochkind12• 4 months ago

I think most people getting a paycheck get there on their own, and this guy is accidentally helping to sell the bill.

Balgair• 4 months ago

Oh man the Colorado GOP is a complete mess these days.

One of the frontrunners for the governorship is just spouting straight antisemitic garbage: https://www.9news.com/article/news/politics/gop-gubernatoria...

Edit: He withdrew this morning and is running for the GOP chair now.

Bobert is quiet these days but I'm sure she'll ramp up after her primary closes.

The various school boards are perennial sources of my idiocy. My (former) board would go into public meetings and just openly and freely admit to crimes.

The county commissioners in DougCo recently decided to fine the victims of shoplifting from r not reporting it. No, you didn't read that wrong.

So, in summary, the GOP and many, but not all, of their state level membership aren't really sending their best these days.

Sephr• 4 months ago

Going to be interesting to see how this affects Uber prices in Colorado. afaict Uber heavily engages in surveillance pricing but claims otherwise, deferring to 'discount' terminology.

lukifer• 4 months ago

Colorado has an alternative service which is entirely driver-owned: https://www.coloradodrivers.coop/

danny_codes• 4 months ago

Very good news. Capitalism is going off the rails and needs to be heavily reigned in.

bwb• 4 months ago

Agreed, I hope they can have some strong enforcement teeth with GIANT fines.

throwaway858253• 4 months ago

It would be better to just mandate disclosure of the algorithms and data for all prices determined by algorithm.

LadyCailin• 4 months ago

I’d rather not have to minmax my grocery prices, thanks. Regulate this to death.

kelnos2• 4 months ago

No it wouldn't. How would that at all help the average consumer?

throwaway858253• 4 months ago

It would expose the ridiculous amount of information advertisers have about you.

thayne3• 4 months ago

I like the idea, but I'm not sure how enforceable it will be in practice. It seems like it would be relatively difficult to prove a company is using surveillance pricing, and companies may just accept the risk of paying a fine.

bgirard• 4 months ago

Subpoenas and whistleblowing are pretty good tools.

fzeroracer• 4 months ago

It's actually not that hard to prove. For example, PSN now has dynamic pricing for their games which can vary quite wildly and all it takes is a small number of consumers with price differences to prove it. The same is true for grocery stores or whatever else.

Enforcing it is another question though and you're right that companies will likely just accept the fine. It's all the more reason why this sort of thing needs to aggressively be legislated against and denied.

TJSomething• 4 months ago

If you can do traffic interception, there's a pretty good chance there's going to be traces of price levels in the API and the analytics. Especially since it's probably going to be bolted on to the side of anything PCI compliant. If there isn't, then it's probably going to be really easy to subpoena to prove mens rea, because getting that right is tricky and requires a fair amount of review and coordination.

eru• 4 months ago

Sounds like the usual populism. I guess in practice people will route around the insanity.

kotaKat• 4 months ago

Is this the "electronic ink pricetags bad" thing that the UFCW keeps peddling because "it takes clerk work away"?

I still don't understand how they think we're going to change UPC pricing live per-person in the physical retail environment. Does the price tag change depending who looks at it? What if two people look at it at the same time? They obviously both can't be surveillance priced at that moment. The UFCW is mad they don't understand they can re-skill the worker that was trained to stick little paper labels up that they can now maintain pricetag batteries and hardware instead.

R_D_Olivaw• 4 months ago

It's so damn dystopian that we're even toying with such things.

But have me an idea: for whatever reason, a person consistently gets lower prices, and offers to be your shopper. You end up paying less for groceries than you would if you went, but you have to pay your shopper. So pretty much same outcome, BUT, you didn't have to do the shopping

jfil• 4 months ago

This is why I alway bring a street urchin with me when I shop for groceries. I make sure he has a cellphone & wifi enabled. We carefully walk down the aisle side by side and the e-ink price tags start flashing. They usually settle on a price that's halfway between the personalized price for him and I.

There are a lot of positive outcomes from this technology: more revenue in the pocket of the family who own's Canada's biggest grocer & REIT, and a deeper relationship with the neighbourhood vagabonds for me.

Colorado House passes bill to limit surveillance pricing and wage setting

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