A bill from a Newport-area state senator that would ban businesses from using algorithms and real-time data to manipulate what customers pay is headed to the Rhode Island Senate Commerce Committee for a hearing Tuesday afternoon.
The legislation (2026-S 2428), introduced by Sen. Dawn Euer (D-Dist. 13, Newport, Jamestown), would make it a deceptive trade practice under Rhode Island law for companies to use surveillance pricing or dynamic pricing — and would prohibit the use of automatic algorithmic analysis that results in customers seeing different prices for the same product or service.
“When Rhode Islanders walk into a store or shop online, they should know that they are seeing the same prices as everyone else and that those prices didn’t just increase as they were parking because snow’s now in the forecast,” Euer said. “These new technologies, which are used to maximize the price each customer pays, hurt Rhode Islanders whose budgets are already stretched thin by the rising cost of housing, gas prices and the impact of tariffs. I’ve introduced this bill to end these high-tech price gouging techniques that customers cannot afford.”
The bill targets three distinct practices. Surveillance pricing charges different customers different prices for the same goods or services based on personal or household data collected about them. Dynamic pricing — sometimes called surge pricing — adjusts prices in real time based on factors such as consumer demand, weather, time of purchase, traffic or local events. Algorithmic pricing is a broader term for when an algorithm sets prices based on a data training set.
The legislation would still allow discounts, rebates and loyalty programs that do not rely on surveillance pricing.
The bill will be heard by the Senate Commerce Committee Tuesday, March 24, at the rise of the Senate — sometime after 4:30 p.m. — in Room 212 on the second floor of the State House.
Euer, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been among the General Assembly’s most active lawmakers on consumer and utility protection issues. Earlier this session she introduced legislation to limit private equity ownership in health care and a bill to protect ratepayers from rising utility costs.