Kouri Marshall, senior director of state and local government affairs at Chamber of Progress, told Colorado lawmakers that there is no evidence consumers are being systematically harmed by surveillance-based pricing, as a House committee considered legislation to ban the practice.
Speaking during a hearing of the Colorado House Business Affairs and Labor Committee, Marshall said existing research does not support claims that personalized pricing is leading to widespread consumer harm.
“No one has demonstrated that consumers are being systematically overcharged through personalized pricing. Not the FTC report, which documented that the capability exists, but stopped well short of finding that it’s harming consumers at scale,” said Marshall.
“Not the Instacart study, whose own authors acknowledged the price differences they found couldn’t be linked to consumer characteristics. We heard the sponsors make a lot of claims about surveillance pricing today, but they just didn’t present any evidence to support their claims,” he added.
The hearing focused on HB26-1210, a bill introduced by Reps. Jennifer Bacon and Javier Mabrey that would prohibit individualized price and wage setting based on surveillance data.
The Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously in July 2024 to study surveillance pricing, issuing orders to eight intermediary firms. A preliminary staff report released in January 2025 found that companies had access to extensive personal data to inform pricing tools, but did not conclude that such practices were harming consumers at scale. The report’s release drew criticism from the incoming FTC chairman, who objected to its timing and process.
A December 2025 study by Groundwork Collaborative and Consumer Reports found that Instacart shoppers were charged different prices for identical items. However, the study’s regression analysis found that price differences associated with demographic factors were small and not statistically significant.
Industry groups have argued that broad restrictions on data-driven pricing could also limit digital coupons, loyalty programs and targeted promotions—tools they say save the average household more than $1,400 annually, according to Groundwork Collaborative.
Marshall oversees a policy portfolio spanning 33 states for Chamber of Progress, a technology industry coalition whose corporate partners include Amazon, Google, Uber and Instacart. He previously served as deputy director of agency personnel in the office of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and as state director for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.
