CAMBRIDGE, Md. – Two new Maryland laws that took effect Thursday aim to protect shoppers from personalized grocery pricing and to ensure they can still pay with cash for essentials like food and fuel.
The first law bans what's known as "dynamic pricing," the practice of setting a price for an individual customer based on their personal data. Under the law, grocery stores can no longer use apps or websites that track a customer's shopping habits to determine what that customer pays.
Shanay Jackson of Cambridge said she sometimes uses shopping apps to check out prices but often shops at a local market to avoid the price swings she sometimes sees at larger stores.
"I'm a single mother of three, so my grocery bill is extremely high. Sometimes it's barely affordable to be able to cook dinner," Jackson said.
She said she supports the new law.
"Anything to protect us I’m with it and the prices are extremely high. So whatever we can do to get them to go down or protect us I'm with it," she said.
Ricky Travers, owner of Simmons Center Market in Cambridge, said his store has never used dynamic pricing. He says he supports the premise of not using a customer's personal information for those who are doing it.
"They should not be using it to gain, to sell it on the market or whatever they decide to do with it, or change the prices because, you know, the price should be the price. Unless it changes because of freight, because of the market, whatever," Travers said.
Amber Stewart, another shopper, said rising prices already make it hard to afford groceries and that using shoppers' information to raise costs would add to the burden.
"It's all you can do to afford, to get groceries right now with the cost and the rising prices of everything. So the last thing you want to do is somewhere else to get your information and make it even worse for you," Stewart said.
Cash requirement
The second law requires businesses that sell essential goods, including food and fuel, to let customers pay with cash.
George Brem said he pays in cash often, especially at the pump.
"Quite often. Breakfast. Dinner, sometimes I use my debit card for dinner, you know, like that, but gas, gasoline. I've never used a credit card for gasoline in my life that I remember. If I did it only once or twice," Brem said.
Danny Cashen, who was fueling up in Cambridge, said he supports the law because he prefers cash to credit cards.
"You should be able to use cash. Why do you have to use a credit card for everything now? I use cash all the time," Cashen said.
