Groundwork Collaborative

🚨 NEW: Big Business rewrote the rules in its favor. We’re rewriting them for shoppers. Our Shoppers’ Bill of Rights lays out 12 basic protections against hidden fees, pricing games, and the corporate tricks driving up everyday costs.

I had so much fun joining @weisenthal.bsky.social and @tracyalloway.bsky.social on @bloomberg.com's Odd Lots. We dug in on the future of agentic commerce and talked about my new book, Gouged. Here are two of the experiments I cited on the show about conflicts of interest and personalized pricing.

New York state would be the largest state to ban surveillance pricing.... if @governor.ny.gov would sign the bill sitting on her desk. As @stephruhle.bsky.social on @ms.now says, "Governor Hochul, we're looking at you."

It's not just the usual bad guys ripping you off anymore – even your area museum or zoo can use "rainy days" as an excuse to charge you more. @lindsayowens.bsky.social went on @ms.now to discuss how deceptive pricing practices are popping up everywhere from Walmart to kids' museum.

What if the person buying the exact same groceries as you was paying less? An investigation found Instacart used AI-powered pricing experiments to show shoppers different prices for identical items — sometimes up to 23% higher. @lindsayowens.bsky.social of @groundwork.bsky.social explains.

Walmart doesn’t need to know: where you live where you work where your kids practice soccer what restaurants you go to what you post online how fast your heart is beating And yet, somehow, there’s a patent for that.

ICYMI: Halloween candy prices are up 15% from last year, 4x the rate of overall inflation. Our new report w/ @groundwork.bsky.social finds that major candy makers are keeping prices high while families are increasingly turning to debt to get by: www.scrippsnews.com/life/holiday...

Candy prices are up 15% from last year — four times overall inflation. Raw ingredients got cheaper. So why are your trick-or-treat bags getting more expensive?

Do you know what's really driving up your candy costs? @abc15.com used our data to make a candy interactive guide – so you can see how much your costs will go AND who's benefiting.

This Halloween is shaping up to be full of more tricks than treats – with candy favorites costing 15% more on average this year. No matter how working families plan to celebrate, Trump’s ghoulish policies and frighteningly high prices are sure to haunt families' budgets.

NEW profile of our @lindsayowens.bsky.social, discussing her new book, "Gouged," the increasingly sophisticated technologies corporations are using to squeeze consumers, & what policymakers can do to restore fairness to our economy. Read the full conversation 👇 washingtonian.com/2026/10/21/h...

Walmart patented a system to decide if you’re enough of a Karen to deserve a gift card when they screw up your order – plus a bunch of other dystopian ways to potentially profile shoppers & personalize prices. Our new report breaks down the patents you have to see to believe.

This Halloween, the real jump scare is how high candy prices are under Trump’s economy. Check out this new report 🔽

Billionaires and corporate America didn’t get lucky in court. It rigged the bench against working people, judge by judge. Our new report with @groundwork.bsky.social exposes the judges doing billionaires' bidding. @nominationnotes.substack.com: nominationnotes.substack.com/p/new-report...

It can be impossible to know if your personal AI agent is working for you or a retailer, our @lindsayowens.bsky.social told @cbsnews.com. Walmart's CEO admitted their "Sparky" boosted average order values by 40%, potentially upcharging their customers.

"The ways in which pricing have become a highly engineered science have eroded the ability for shoppers to comparison shop." Our @lindsayowens.bsky.social sat down with @helaineolen.bsky.social to discuss her new book, and what the end of a fair prices means for our overall society & economy.

NEW from us and @tcfdotorg.bsky.social: Americans hoping not to break the bank when preparing for Halloween this year have few options. Halloween candy prices are up 15.3% – a staggering 4x overall inflation. @scrippsnews.bsky.social with the exclusive 👇

👻 The scariest thing about Halloween this year might be the price of candy. 👻 Our new report w/ @groundwork.bsky.social shows candy prices are up 15.3%, four times faster than overall inflation. And 40% of parents with kids under 18 plan to take on debt for Halloween costs: go.tcf.org/Halloween

We have compiled a decade’s worth of Walmart patents that spell out their new pricing technology. The proof is at the patent office: Walmart is building the tech they could use to set personalized prices.

Prices are up and wages are down. Little wonder, then, that measures of consumer sentiment have worsened. “The thing that people want more than anything, more than economic opportunity or economic growth, they want economic stability,” our Elizabeth Pancotti told @bencasselman.bsky.social.

Americans were furious about their living costs before AI. Now, they’re contending with a technology that may lead to transformational economic change. “People really crave stability. They do not like change. And prices are going up & up & up & up,” @alexsjacquez.bsky.social told @politico.com.

It should not be on consumers to dodge and weave corporations' deceptive pricing practices. But it is time for to update our rules for an age of e-commerce, agentic commerce, and shopping that is increasingly assisted by AI, @lindsayowens.bsky.social writes for @cnbc.com.

Things Walmart has patented: 🐟 Put tuna in your cart, pay more for mayo 🎟️ Coupons withheld if you’re 90%+ likely to buy anyway 😤 Refunds scaled to how much of a fuss you’ll make 🚗 A camera that reads your car’s suspension to guess how much you bought

Voters across party lines increasingly believe America’s political and economic systems are rigged in favor of powerful interests. “That’s now the diagnosis that the American people share – broadly, firmly & coherently,” @lindsayowens.bsky.social told @bloomberg.com.

Our @lindsayowens.bsky.social spoke at @aspenideas.bsky.social on the concerning future of agentic commerce, and later stopped at @magiccitybooks.bsky.social for a book signing of her new book Gouged! She'll also be at the Southern Festival of Books this weekend in Nashville – come say hi!

Walmart says its electronic shelf labels are about "efficiency." Their patent filings tell a different story. With this new pricing technology they could: →"Dynamically & automatically" update prices based on popularity → Set prices based on individual customer data We have the receipts.

Retailers use AI to tap their vast amounts of consumer data to set prices on the max amount they believe you're willing to pay. "Technology is allowing companies to stop setting prices for products & start setting prices for you," our @lindsayowens.bsky.social told @cbsnews.com.

🚨 NEW: Walmart is reporting record profits, while deploying pricing practices that change prices in a nanosecond. Our new report documents exactly how Walmart can use electronic shelf labels and AI pricing technology to quietly squeeze every last dollar out of shoppers.

Got to meet the Amazon AI “spoof” of Gouged, authored by Linda Owie, today. Its owner had dog eared & marked up her copy & was eager to meet Linda. Grateful to @felixsalmon.com for bringing levity & humor to the situation. I’m signing copies of MY book @magiccitybooks.bsky.social at 12:30.

The next big idea according to the @nextbigidea.bsky.social? The fair, fixed price is disappearing. Companies now use AI and personal data to charge each customer as much as they'll pay. Find out what to do about it in @lindsayowens.bsky.social's new book, Gouged.

Our @lindsayowens.bsky.social joined @npr.org's All Things Considered to discuss how your personal data is being used to control what you see and pay. "I worry that the changes that companies are making to pricing is going to erode competition and make us all poor to boot."

Trump's plan to import Russian diesel won't meaningfully bring costs down or help the U.S. economy. "While 300,000 metric tons sounds like it’s a lot of barrels, that’s like half a day of diesel demand in the U.S.,” our @alexsjacquez.bsky.social told @thehill.com.

Gotta love the bipartisan enthusiasm for Gouged. Didn’t expect I’d be spending an hour with Newt this year, but the issues I discuss in Gouged are 80-20 issues with no partisan differences. Everyone wants to restore the fair price.

Don't expect Trump's plan to import Russian diesel fuel to solve skyrocketing gas prices. “These are all Band-Aid-over-bullet-hole measures that I think are designed to get a little bit of price relief through December,” our @alexsjacquez.bsky.social told @nytimes.com.

“Gouged is brilliant, remarkably useful, and troubling.” – Newt Gingrich @lindsayowens.bsky.social joined Newt Gingrich on his podcast to discuss the end of a fair price, how corporations are rewriting the rules of pricing, and what policymakers can do to protect consumers.

Walmart says they don't price people. But their last ten years worth of patent applications tells a very different story. "Who are you going to believe? The expert on surveillance pricing or George W. Bush’s former communications director? It’s a very hard choice."

The data Walmart wants from you is staggering. From your playlists to your glucose levels, it wants to know everything about you. “Taken together, these patents represent one of the most expansive corporate surveillance regimes the world has ever known,” @lindsayowens.bsky.social in @nypost.com.

NEW: Walmart’s patents could enable more than just personalized pricing. They could usher in a level of surveillance unlike anything shoppers have seen before. As @forbes.com reports, the privacy implications raise serious questions Walmart has yet to answer.

Great piece on Walmart’s pricing patents in @gizmodo.com from @paleofuture.bsky.social. “But who are you going to believe? The expert on surveillance pricing or George W. Bush’s former communications director? It’s a very hard choice.”

CEOs keep telling their investors exactly how they’re purposely raising prices on working families. @groundwork.bsky.social is listening, and using executives’ own words to hold them accountable. Must read on Lindsay Owns’ and Elizabeth Pancotti’s work: groundworkcollaborative.org/work/the-wal...

For generations, two people standing in the same checkout line paid the same price, @groundwork.bsky.social is calling out corporations as families’ budgets are getting hit harder due to intentional price hikes, and rising inflation. groundworkcollaborative.org/work/the-wal...

Companies like Starbucks are using your loyalty against you. Loyalty programs can double as sophisticated data-harvesting operations, our @lindsayowens.bsky.social warns on @ms.now. It turns out your loyalty could be costing you more at checkout.

Walmart patented a system that could raise the price of mayo after it sees you put tuna in your cart. Other patents could withhold coupons if you’re likely to buy anyway — or tailor refunds based on your personality.