Report links Walmart patents to pricing shoppers using personal data

The report, called “The Walmart Watchtower,” came out on October 5 from Groundwork Collaborative. It was written by the group’s president and CEO, Lindsay Owens, and its vice president for policy, Elizabeth Pancotti. It reviews a series of Walmart patent applications that describe collecting a wide range of personal data, from the songs on your playlist to your credit report.

According to the report, the patents describe capabilities such as:

• raising or lowering a price depending on what’s already in a shopper’s cart, such as charging more for mayo when tuna is in the basket;
• holding back coupons from shoppers judged likely to pay full price anyway;
• testing different prices on individual shoppers to see how much each will pay;
• charging certain groups more for things they need, such as baby products for new parents.

The report also targets Sparky, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, saying customers who use it spend more than those who don’t. Groundwork argues that companies don’t spend money developing and patenting technology they don’t plan to use.

Two terms get mixed up here. Dynamic pricing means prices that move within a day based on conditions like demand or the weather; Uber’s surge pricing is a familiar example. Surveillance pricing goes further, using information about you, like your behavior, location or income, to charge you a different price than the next person for the same item.

Consumer advocates worry most about the second kind. The Consumer Federation of America says it can be based on stand-ins for protected traits like age or race, and that it hits low-income families hardest because they have less time and money to compare prices.

Public claims deserve a public response. Especially when they’re inaccurate and misleading.@owenslindsay1 has repeatedly suggested Walmart uses or plans to use technology to charge people more based on their personal information. https://t.co/Hp4gGhYUR4

— Dan Bartlett (@danbartlett6) October 5, 2026

Walmart pushed back hard and fast. On the day the report appeared, Dan Bartlett, the company’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, published an open letter to Owens. He said Groundwork repeatedly misrepresents how Walmart prices goods and uses technology, that Walmart won’t adopt dynamic pricing, and that it doesn’t use AI to raise prices for customers. He also argued that a patent only describes a possible invention and doesn’t mean the company has used it or plans to.

Walmart went a step further on one patent. A spokesperson said a patent granted in 2023, which describes changing prices on electronic shelf labels based on what a shopper has scanned, will not be used or renewed. As things stand, it runs until April 2039.

That followed a September 25 letter to customers from CEO John Furner, who promised Walmart prices the product, not the person. He wrote that your income, shopping history or urgency won’t change what you pay. A company representative added that Walmart doesn’t set prices by who you are or the time of day, and won’t.

Owens isn’t satisfied. She says the confusion is Walmart’s own doing, because it tells customers, investors and the US patent office different things, and Groundwork released a further analysis of the patents so people can judge for themselves.

Right now, there’s no evidence in the report that Walmart charges individual shoppers different prices. But the tools to do it are spreading. Walmart plans to have digital shelf labels in all its US stores by the end of the year, with about 90% of store sections already fitted. Those labels make price changes cheap and instant, which is why lawmakers are paying attention.

Rules are starting to catch up:

• Maryland became the first state to ban retailers from setting prices using real-time surveillance data about shoppers.
• New Jersey passed a law, taking effect in 2027, that bans using personal data to set prices, mainly at grocery stores.
• New York requires stores to warn shoppers when a price was set by an algorithm using their personal data.
• The FTC is collecting public comment on surveillance pricing, though it has hinted it may focus on transparency rather than bans.

A few habits help in the meantime. Compare prices across stores and apps, look for disclosure notices if you live in New York, and think about how much data you share through loyalty programs and shopping apps, since that’s where personal pricing data comes from. Groundwork has form here: it was part of a December 2025 investigation into Instacart price tests, which Instacart ended after a public outcry.