WASHINGTON, D.C. (WPBN/WGTU) — Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) accused Kroger of using technology that could be used for price gouging and discriminatory pricing.
Rep. Tlaib wrote in a letter posted to social media Wednesday that the grocery chain could use electronic shelving labels (ESLs) to price gouge consumers during emergencies.
“ESLs or digital price tags may result in Kroger deploying dynamic pricing for goods, increasing the price of essential goods on shelves based on real time conditions and inventory and creating both confusion and hardship for my residents,” Rep. Tlaib’s letter states.
“My concern is that these tools will be abused in the pursuit of profit, surging prices on essential goods in areas with fewer and fewer grocery stories,” Tlaib’s letter continues. “Our residents are already worried about rising household costs and these changes would overly burden many working families.”
Tlaib wrote that the use of facial recognition software at stores could allow Kroger to build profiles on customers and charge them in a discriminatory manner.
“The use of facial recognition tools has the potential to invade a customer’s privacy and employ biased price discrimination,” Tlaib said.
The letter requests that Kroger respond to Tlaib’s concerns by November 1.
Tlaib’s letter echoed similar concerns recently raised by two other Democratic politicians.
In August, U.S. senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) sent a letter to Kroger CEORodney McMullen that the use of ESLs could “surge grocery prices and exploit consumers.”
“Widespread adoption of digital price tags appears poised to enable large grocery stores to squeeze consumers to increase profits,” Warren and Casey wrote.
“Analysts have indicated that the widespread use of dynamic pricing will result in groceries and other consumer goods being ‘priced like airline tickets,’ ‘creat[ing] a sense of urgency and a sense of scarcity that wouldn’t exist if there were just publicly posted prices that everybody understood,’ and allowing ‘sellersto figure out ways to extract the maximum amount of profit from each customer,'” the letter continues.
With 420,000 employees and more than 2,700 stores across the country, Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the United States.
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