NY Surveillance Pricing Law Violates First Amendment, Says Chamber of Commerce
A New York state law requiring retailers to disclose when they're using algorithmic pricing is content- and viewpoint-based and a violation of the First Amendment, said a Thursday amicus brief by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The group filed in support of the National Retail Federation (NRF), which filed suit in early July against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), alleging that the state is inappropriately compelling speech through the Algorithmic Disclosure Act.
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The Act "will require businesses ... to recite an ominous, government-mandated script whenever they use an algorithm to tailor prices and offers to individual customers," creating "the false impression that algorithmic pricing deserves suspicion and skepticism," the Chamber said. "The result will be to harm all businesses" that use algorithmic pricing, and "consumers will be harmed too, as many businesses are likely to forego beneficial algorithmic pricing altogether, rather than recite a state-mandated script that wrongly requires them to disparage their own offer."
James asked the U.S. District Court for Southern New York to drop case 25-05500 at the end of July, arguing the NRF didn't state a claim, nor does the law violate the First Amendment (see 2507290049). Privacy lawyer Heidi Saas agreed, arguing in a LinkedIn post that the First Amendment doesn't protect surveillance pricing and blasting what she called a "data broker meltdown" (see 2507070042).