New York Now Requires Retailers To Tell You When AI Sets Your Price (nytimes.com) 44
New York has become the first state in the nation to enact a law requiring retailers to disclose when AI and personal data are being used to set individualized prices [non-paywalled source] -- a measure that lawyers say will make algorithmic pricing "the next big battleground in A.I. regulation."
The law, enacted through the state budget, requires online retailers using personalized pricing to post a specific notice: "THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA." The National Retail Federation sued to block enforcement on First Amendment grounds, arguing the required disclosure was "misleading and ominous," but federal judge Jed S. Rakoff allowed the law to proceed last month.
Uber has started displaying the notice to New York users. Spokesman Ryan Thornton called the law "poorly drafted and ambiguous" but maintained the company only considers geographic factors and demand in setting prices. At least 10 states have bills pending that would require similar disclosures or ban personalized pricing outright. California and federal lawmakers are considering complete bans.
The law, enacted through the state budget, requires online retailers using personalized pricing to post a specific notice: "THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA." The National Retail Federation sued to block enforcement on First Amendment grounds, arguing the required disclosure was "misleading and ominous," but federal judge Jed S. Rakoff allowed the law to proceed last month.
Uber has started displaying the notice to New York users. Spokesman Ryan Thornton called the law "poorly drafted and ambiguous" but maintained the company only considers geographic factors and demand in setting prices. At least 10 states have bills pending that would require similar disclosures or ban personalized pricing outright. California and federal lawmakers are considering complete bans.
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Yep. I think it may be time to kick out the plugs keeping this old girl on top of the ocean.
Just hold that salute as we sink beneath the waves, mister!
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Works fine for me... Try noscript?
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Same for me on Firefox with uBlock, no video ads. Wonder if this is affecting the lite version Chrome is forced into now?
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Yeah probably. I'm on Firefox with ublock, no script and privacy badger. I never see obnoxious ads.
I don't really understand the nerd rage against Firefox. Sure they've made some missteps, and I don't really like where the management of Mozilla is heading these days, but literally every alternative is objectively worse.
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It's a little silly but I finally made the switch after the Chrome plugin update killed my favorite calculator plugin and I use that thing everyday and there was a clone made for FF (shout out Foxy Calculator [mozilla.org])
There's been some foibles and some things I wish it did that Chrome does (please dont make me scroll tabs, just condense them into a row even when I have 70+) but overall its been nice and the full fat uBlock is kinda worth it alone.
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A week or two ago I noticed that the "vote" buttons for submissions had been changed to link to some part of the "help" system, under the anchor "iusenoscript". Which means I can't vote for, or against, submissions. Which I used to do.
But, to be honest, I'm wasting less and less time here. The problem of it being American-centric is getting worse (and it has always been bad) ; the lunatic right-wingers that come with that are getting madder ; the stories are getting more boringly uniform - obsessing over A
Re:Autoplay video ads (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh, I allow ads on Slashdot because I support the site and want to see it continue to exist.
Re: support the site and want to see it continue (Score:2)
Heretic!
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Ads can also be non intrusive.
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Don't pretend like that has any impact on you blocking ads on Slashdot. It's hilarious you'd even pretend like you'd unblock ads on this site if the ads were unobtrusive.
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I want them to bring back Slashdot subscriptions [archive.org]. I'll happily pay to support Slashdot, but I uncompromisingly reject advertising. Not to mention, the few times the newer ads have gotten through uBlock filters they've been atrocious.
I know the site has been on life support for a decade but subscriptions seem like a pretty easy way to make some money.
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People here bitch up a storm about subscriptions. Clearly, if they'd been a viable way to support the site they would have kept doing it. The fact they've sunset them and implemented more ads tells you what you need to know.
Good contributors to the site have an easy option to disable all ads. I shut it off and let them run in order to support the site, but it's a simple checkbox on the right that allows you to turn all the ads off, if you choose.
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Using ublock lite w/Vivaldi and haven't seen a video ad. I _did_ need to manually create a custom rule to block a new pop-up ad (non-video) though recently after years of nothing with the same combo
"Individualized" pricing is anti-competetive (Score:2)
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Can someone please create a counter-ai which will make you appear as poor as possible and therefore get cheap AI generated pricing?
Hence the discount cards (Score:2, Troll)
That's always been the game. Use your data to gain insight to exactly how much extra they might be able to extract per person.
Grocery store points card? Yep, you nailed it. They charge higher prices if you don't give them your data, in order to charge higher prices. They're just letting you delay it a little bit while they build their price gouging system.
I'm fighting back. I'm using AI to get information on their prices and historical data so I can determine if the price is good or BS. Sooner or later we'l
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Yeah it's a poor thing to just try to silence your opposition and curb free speech.
Inventing new weapons against your opposition sounds fantastic until they do it to, and they're always so shocked as if how could it ever happen to them?
Best not to do it, and allow people to talk things through instead.
How will NYC enforce this? (Score:3)
All a company has to say is that they use a third party company that uses various data sources to set the optimal price for the time period, and they are off the hook.
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Why are US lawmakers so bad at their jobs that these kinds of work-arounds are a thing? Don't they get experts to write the laws, and then fire them if they screw up this badly?
I've noticed that a lot of US tech companies don't understand how this isn't normal, and when they discover that the same work-arounds don't work in Europe, they get very upset.
We already have anti-discrimination laws. (Score:4, Interesting)
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But your AI can hide all your bigotry behind a cloud! Then you can have it imagine excuses as to why a certain group is picked on by the system. Don't even need to make up lies for it anymore. Even if you are guilty from some bug leaking out proof, just donate to Trump. problem solved.
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Actually, discrimination based on income is *not* protected by law.
"Just add"...
We see how well current antidiscrimination law works. It bans discrimination based on race, but not based on zip code or income level.
"Just adding" personal data to the list, will work about as well. There are always proxies for the things that are off limits.
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Start enforcing them. equal pricing for everyone regardless of race, color, and income is protected by law. Just add personal data to that discrimination law.
I honestly think dynamic pricing is just the dumbest MBA think that has ever been dreamed up. We used to have dynamic pricing at markets, and you had to spend ages haggling over everything. The development of the 'price tag' - particularly in western countries - was a massive efficiency increase for the average consumer.
Now we a heading back to the haggling era - when booking flights I have to regularly mess around with user-agents and switching to mobile to check I'm not being scammed by the algorithms. It
Bad solution to a real problem (Score:1, Interesting)
I got a feeling this will quickly become the new "everything causes cancer and we have to tell you about it" California nonsense.
Everything will have this disclaimer, since algorithms now set prices even in retail, and no one wants to take a risk of being on the wrong side of damages on this one.
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I love it how shitholistani bots keep revealing themselves as such by not knowing the newer trends across first world when talking about it. For example here the shitholistani bot doesn't know that in first world a lot of retail stores now have apps that give you personalized price offers based on algorithmic analysis of your purchase history.
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I understand that you live in a shithole where "there's a different price in app, just for you" is sci-fi in 2025.
In first world, it's been reality for a while. And what they do is not "increase price", but "vary the discount".
Which falls under the law.
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That is exactly what pricing I outline above already has been doing for a while.
Welcome to the future shitholistani peasant. I'm sure it will arrive to where ever it is you reside eventually, as most such things do over time.
They have no body to punish (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: Facts give our customers a reason to dislike and distrust our business practices.
It's is terrifying the number of corporations demanding the US first amendment give them the right to hide the truth. This is why US courts must not give human rights to legally-immortal corporations.
Choice to decline AI price, pay full MSRP instead (Score:2)
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I see something similar today. The shelf tag says "$XX, club price $YY". I am not a member of the club so I just treat the whole store as over-priced, a place to shop as a last resort. Thankfully there are plenty of other stores at the moment that don't play that game.
And if they say at the checkout "you could have saved $ZZ by joining our club" I tell them that's why I avoid shopping there
everything (Score:2)
Everything not forbidden is compulsory.
Odd, I thought it was the guy with the ticket gun (Score:2)
who set prices at retail. Or at least, printed them onto the shelf label. Do they send people - invisible people - running around the stores to change the labels ahead of me looking at them? I used to have that idea about how the TV worked - with tiny changing rooms in the cabinet - but I understand now that they work differently and the miniature actors go through a Rick'n'Morty-esque "portal" to their changing rooms, allowing for thinner TVs.
Or, does "retail" mean something different in EN_US?