Colorado House passes bill to limit surveillance pricing and wage setting

3/28/2026 at 2:24:52 AM

> 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.

by jrochkind1

3/28/2026 at 7:40:06 PM

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.

by Balgair

3/28/2026 at 6:32:22 AM

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

by tzs

3/28/2026 at 7:13:05 AM

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

by cobertos

3/28/2026 at 8:55:53 PM

Choosing a pay band based on performance and setting the pay bands as low as they can losing all their employees are orthogonal.

Suppose you are an employer and you have 5 junior engineers. You wish to promote one to senior engineer, which includes a move to a higher pay band. How do you decide which one gets the promotion?

Most companies are going to decide which one to promote at least partly based on performance data. Do they consistently finish things on time? What is the defect rate in their work? Do they work well with others? Do they need a lot of help compared to their peers or are the who their peers turn to when the peers need help? Does their work show skill above what would normally be found in junior engineer work?

From what has been quoted by or about the objects that one representative had it is that he thinks the bill has been written too broadly and could be construed as prohibiting using job performance data like that in deciding promotions.

by tzs

3/29/2026 at 7:46:46 AM

My teamlead decides to promote me, not robots or algorithms.

by AlexeyBelov

3/29/2026 at 8:48:51 AM

I call bs. Please stop posting LLM comments.

by tuhgdetzhh

3/30/2026 at 8:16:15 AM

How was my comment an LLM comment?

by AlexeyBelov

3/30/2026 at 9:25:53 AM

Its quite obvious. Reported to mods.

by etyhhgfff

3/31/2026 at 5:40:28 AM

OK, 6 months old throwaway account.

by AlexeyBelov

3/28/2026 at 1:48:42 PM

Most companies want not the least an employee will take right now, but the least that will keep that employee around rather than jumping ship.

by margalabargala

3/28/2026 at 6:49:52 PM

And when an industry at large is using RealPage for Wages, those two numbers may become increasingly similar

by thunderfork

3/29/2026 at 12:29:19 PM

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

by jrochkind1

3/28/2026 at 3:51:22 PM

current and historical capitalist trends, that's how

by LocalH

3/28/2026 at 4:18:05 AM

“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.”

by thegreatpeter

3/28/2026 at 8:50:45 AM

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

by kelnos

3/28/2026 at 11:27:56 AM

That’s juicy coming from the current Republican Party.

by adestefan

3/28/2026 at 9:45:54 AM

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.

by kotaKat

3/28/2026 at 1:56:09 PM

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

by R_D_Olivaw

3/29/2026 at 3:22:01 PM

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.

by jfil

3/28/2026 at 6:10:52 AM

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.

by thayne

3/28/2026 at 6:57:50 AM

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.

by fzeroracer

3/28/2026 at 8:01:31 AM

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.

by TJSomething

3/28/2026 at 6:28:56 AM

Subpoenas and whistleblowing are pretty good tools.

by bgirard

3/28/2026 at 5:08:21 AM

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

by throwaway85825

3/28/2026 at 8:25:04 AM

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

by LadyCailin

3/28/2026 at 8:51:29 AM

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

by kelnos

3/28/2026 at 3:04:25 PM

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

by throwaway85825

3/28/2026 at 6:51:31 PM

You can read privacy policies, terms of service and data sharing agreements today. Do you?

by thunderfork

3/28/2026 at 7:11:48 PM

They dont list the column names.

by throwaway85825

3/28/2026 at 3:04:12 AM

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.

by Sephr

3/28/2026 at 5:00:51 PM

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

by lukifer

3/28/2026 at 3:53:31 AM

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

by danny_codes

3/28/2026 at 9:11:36 AM

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

by bwb

3/28/2026 at 1:30:34 AM

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.

by IG_Semmelweiss

3/28/2026 at 1:34:39 AM

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".

by adestefan

3/28/2026 at 2:25:22 AM

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.

by pnw

3/28/2026 at 5:13:05 AM

Sounds great! The theory behind capitalism only works if prices are transparent and goods are transferable. These sorts of "special discounts" are fundamentally harmful to the economy as a whole.

by adgjlsfhk1

3/28/2026 at 6:12:50 AM

> The theory behind capitalism only works if prices are transparent and goods are transferable.

The theory behind capitalism requires people to take into account what they know when making decisions.

Suppose you have a business where many customers expect to be able to try the product before committing to buy it so the cost of paying for shipping for "free returns" has to be incorporated into the advertised price. Then you notice that a subset of customers have a better idea of what they want and never trouble you with returns, so you want to give them a discount to try to get more of their business.

That's capitalism working the way it's supposed to. The customers who consume fewer resources get to pay lower prices. But it's the thing this bill prohibits, isn't it?

by AnthonyMouse

3/28/2026 at 6:23:15 AM

If capatilism was working the way it was supposed to, the customer could choose between paying more up front, but having the option of a "free" return, or paying less upfront byt having to pay for a return (or not be able to return it).

And for that matter, the customer would have enough information to know the quality of the product before purchasing, but that is often not possible.

by thayne

3/28/2026 at 6:37:04 AM

Everybody knows the cows are not actually spheres. It's about how you deal with it.

If you try to sell "return insurance" then some customers don't buy it but end up wanting to return it anyway and then leave you a bad review for not having free returns. That costs you more than charging somewhat higher prices and having free returns, so that's what you do instead. But now efficiency requires some other mechanism of allowing the people who don't do excessive returns to pay a lower price.

Also, suppose you actually did sell return insurance. Then you notice that a subset of the customers who buy return insurance rarely use it, so you want to give them a discount to try to get more of their business.

by AnthonyMouse

3/28/2026 at 1:12:21 PM

Your idea of charging less to customers who know what they want is also a spherical cow.

They’ll buy your entire life from a data broker and charge you more because yesterday you accidentally viewed some Lamborghini seat covers. They’ll calculate that you have less willpower on Thursday nights and change their advertised price from $10 to ON SALE $2 off $12. They’ll just do coincidentally use the same algorithm to determine their price as all the other stores do so they don’t have to worry about competing on price.

by wat10000

3/28/2026 at 3:56:16 PM

> They’ll buy your entire life from a data broker and charge you more because yesterday you accidentally viewed some Lamborghini seat covers.

You're describing incompetence. You're not actually rich just because you viewed something by accident which means you're not actually price-insensitive and they just lost the sale to someone else. That has nothing to do with algorithms, incompetent companies put themselves at a disadvantage and make fewer sales than other companies all else equal, and the ones that are sufficiently bad at it go bust.

> They’ll calculate that you have less willpower on Thursday nights and change their advertised price from $10 to ON SALE $2 off $12.

They do that regardless of whether it's Thursday.

> They’ll just do coincidentally use the same algorithm to determine their price as all the other stores do so they don’t have to worry about competing on price.

This again has nothing to do with algorithms. They can do the same thing by just looking at the prices other merchants are charging and setting the same ones, and if you really want to prevent this then the law you want is the one that prohibits manufacturers from enforcing "no sales below MSRP" against retailers.

Because in a market with a large number of retailers, the individual retailers all have the incentive to defect from a price fixing scheme, because increasing your market share from 0.5% to 20% by having the lowest price when those other idiots are refusing to compete on price is worth way more than having slightly better margins. This is why it's important that the number of competitors be large instead of small. Laws should be directed to ensuring that rather than trying to micromanage a consolidated market full of incumbents so large they can buy the government anyway.

by AnthonyMouse

3/28/2026 at 4:04:17 PM

What if they’re not incompetent and you intentionally looked at Lamborghini seat covers, then, and correctly flagged you as willing to pay more as a result?

What if that fake sale tactic only works on you when your willpower is low and they know it?

Price fixing by software is a real thing. I agree that ensuring lots of competitors is a better way to avoid it. How would Colorado do that?

by wat10000

3/28/2026 at 4:22:20 PM

> What if they’re not incompetent and you intentionally looked at Lamborghini seat covers, then, and correctly flagged you as willing to pay more as a result?

What they're more likely to do is show you higher end products, because a rich person (or the person they hire to buy things for them) still has the capacity to compare prices for the same product and then charging more for the same thing still loses them the sale in a competitive market. Whereas if they show you the premium product instead of the base product because they've correctly surmised that you'll prefer the better product even if it costs more, is that even bad?

> What if that fake sale tactic only works on you when your willpower is low and they know it?

Then they still use it all the time because that's more effective than trying to guess when your willpower is lower and sometimes being wrong.

> Price fixing by software is a real thing.

It's a hypothetical thing where it works as long as everybody is using the same software. Like the other methods of price fixing, it stops working as soon as anybody does something different because then customers just start buying from them, and then we're back to needing to make sure there are enough competitors that that's what happens.

> I agree that ensuring lots of competitors is a better way to avoid it. How would Colorado do that?

In a lot of markets it's already the case but they're applying laws like this to them anyway. In consolidated markets, we largely already have antitrust laws and the main problem is a lack of enforcement, so maybe go chop up some large corporations.

There are also some cases when the courts issue a bad antitrust interpretation and then you need the legislature to pass a short bill that basically points to that case and says "no, the opposite of that".

by AnthonyMouse

3/28/2026 at 7:16:17 PM

Dynamic personalized pricing is a real thing. Has been for ages. The old-fashioned techniques are coupons and loyalty cards, or just having higher prices in higher-end stores. Competition isn't nearly as perfect as you say. It's very common for high-end stores to sell identical items at higher prices and still sell plenty of them.

These days you can do a much better job if you have data about your prospective customer. This is not a hypothetical. For example, Target was found to charge higher prices in their app if your location was close to one of their stores. Orbits and Delta have both been found to offer personalized prices as well.

https://retailwire.com/discussion/will-targets-dynamic-prici...

https://www.fastsimon.com/ecommerce-wiki/personalization/dyn...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/personalized-pricing-ha...

Price fixing where everybody uses the same software is a real thing. RealPage recently settled a lawsuit over this.

You seem to be taking a very Libertarian approach where you assume economics 101 wins out over anything more complex, but if you look at what's actually going on in the world this is not the case.

by wat10000

3/29/2026 at 7:27:24 PM

> Dynamic personalized pricing is a real thing. Has been for ages.

The thing where you get a discount for making a below-average number of returns is also dynamic personalized pricing.

> Competition isn't nearly as perfect as you say. It's very common for high-end stores to sell identical items at higher prices and still sell plenty of them.

High-end stores are often selling more than just the product. Some people put a premium on buying from a place they trust not to carry low-quality products so they can save time needing to exclude those themselves, or to not provide them with a counterfeit or not make returns a hassle if there's something wrong with it when they get home. I mean how would you explain anyone buying from them otherwise?

> For example, Target was found to charge higher prices in their app if your location was close to one of their stores.

It's pretty obvious why they do this. It's more expensive to keep stock at a retail store with premium downtown real estate than a rural warehouse, but if you do then you'll get sales from customers who want to see the product before they buy it or who want to get it today instead of waiting for it to be shipped. So stores have to charge higher prices than websites to cover their higher costs.

Which creates a problem for a company that has both a store and a website. If they charge higher prices on their website than other websites, customers shopping at home will use another website. If they charge lower prices on their website, customers will come use the store as a showroom or take advantage of same-day store pickup but buy the product on their phone while in the store to get the website price, using the store without paying the higher costs of having a store. This is already putting many retail stores out of business because people will use the store as a showroom and then buy the same product on their phone from whatever website has the lowest price, but at least then the store has the advantage that you can walk out of there with the product instead of waiting for shipping.

Now, is raising the website price while you're in the store a good way to fix this? Maybe not, because it kind of pisses off the customers once someone figures it out and you get bad press. But that's the argument that they don't benefit from doing it, which is no reason to ban it. You don't have to punish companies for things the market will punish them for itself. Whereas if it's actually effective to help them keep the store open so that people continue to have a showroom and same-day pickup, why are we trying to stop this again?

> Price fixing where everybody uses the same software is a real thing. RealPage recently settled a lawsuit over this.

The fun thing about attempting to fix prices is that it's illegal regardless of whether it's effective. It's completely possible to net lose money by withholding units from the market to the net benefit of the landlords not using the same software, while simultaneously causing legal problems for yourself.

It turns out that "a fool and his money are soon parted" also applies to companies.

> You seem to be taking a very Libertarian approach where you assume economics 101 wins out over anything more complex, but if you look at what's actually going on in the world this is not the case.

The reason those things are taught in Econ 101 is that in the common case that's what happens. Competitive markets actually benefit customers.

The primary things you need from the government are a) to prohibit anti-competitive acts so that competition actually exists, b) to punish fraud and c) to price externalities imposed on people who aren't party to the transaction (e.g. environmental pollution).

You generally don't need (or want) the government to prohibit companies in a competitive market from doing things customers could avoid by just patronizing someone else. If many customers with 100+ options are knowingly choosing one you think they shouldn't, it's more often because they're getting something out of it than because the government is smarter and less corrupt than everyone else.

by AnthonyMouse

3/29/2026 at 8:18:32 PM

You pivoted awfully fast from “nobody does this” to “everybody does this and it’s fine.”

Anyway, suffice to say that I disagree about the desirability of these techniques and the ability of the market to straighten things out.

by wat10000

3/28/2026 at 5:59:35 AM

I can see how say, a roofing business might have a “VIP” sale during a slow season, such that a discounted contract is signed and money is exchanged in the future when the weather doesn’t prohibit the work.

I don’t think that is unreasonable.

by irishcoffee

3/28/2026 at 8:35:14 AM

The season is the same for all customers, so that isn't surveillance pricing.

by Jiro

3/28/2026 at 1:15:59 PM

I can see how a roofing business might buy your online shopping history, deduce that you drive a Lexus, and bump up their prices. Then profile you as not very handy, and cut corners knowing you won’t spot the issues.

by wat10000

3/29/2026 at 11:27:58 AM

As opposed to just using Google Maps or driving by your house? Those options are a lot cheaper.

by irishcoffee

3/29/2026 at 1:33:36 PM

Garages exist.

by wat10000

3/31/2026 at 12:04:21 AM

They do.

Were you trying to make a point there?

by irishcoffee

3/31/2026 at 12:44:36 PM

Google Maps or driving by their house won’t tell you if someone has a Lexus parked inside their garage.

by wat10000

3/31/2026 at 6:53:50 PM

If someone owns a home with a garage, you don't need to know what kind of car they own to case how wealthy they are. It'll be pretty obvious just by looking at the house, the lawn, the neighbors homes, their lawns, their cars, is there a pool in the backyard, is there a community pool with expensive memberships, etc. Google maps and social media will tell you a whole lot... for free.

Why pay? Clearly not because some people may own garages and they may or not store their cars in them. Most people load their garages up with so much shit a car doesn't have a prayer of fitting anyways.

by irishcoffee

3/31/2026 at 8:41:52 PM

Just because lots of info is available doesn't mean more info wouldn't be useful. You never know if your customer might be well above the neighborhood's average wealth. Or be average but have poor impulse control when spending money, which is even more valuable.

by wat10000

3/28/2026 at 6:17:21 AM

On the other hand, without private right to action, consumers may have no recourse if the AG doesn't wish to pursue action (possibly due to corruption, or lack of resources).

by thayne

3/28/2026 at 3:12:15 AM

> 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 solution is to use reasonable efforts to block Colorado residents if you can’t comply with the law. That’s a tradeoff a group of people are allowed to make for themselves.

by JumpCrisscross

3/28/2026 at 5:54:24 AM

The problem is that a small business in Florida or Massachusetts that does 95% of their business in their own state may have no idea that this Colorado law exists until someone sues them over it.

We don't really want small companies to have to start blocking people in other states by default. That's not great for interstate competition.

by AnthonyMouse

3/28/2026 at 4:30:50 AM

Is that a bad thing? If you ate going to discount (B2C), do it for all or do it for none.

by mememememememo

3/28/2026 at 3:59:37 PM

You talk about that like it's a problem...

by dickersnoodle

3/28/2026 at 4:38:39 AM

Ok, but surely there are also downsides.

by wat10000

3/28/2026 at 1:38:42 AM

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.

by wat10000