“To be clear, Kroger does not and has never engaged in ‘surge pricing,’” the statement said. “Any test of electronic shelf tags is designed to lower prices for more customers where it matters most.”
Isn't that the same thing? It doesn't matter if you raise prices on demand or lower them, the outcome is the same - different pricing at different times.
This is all a misunderstanding! The high price IS the regular price. We lower the prices at certain times to benefit our customers, who we love so very much. This is totally not surge pricing!
"Well, you see, 'surge pricing' means raising prices during the most high-traffic times. Here at Kroger, we pride ourselves in raising prices slightly before and after the peak times, and that's technically not surge pricing! It's just dynamic pricing with surge characteristics."
Yeah see it's not surge pricing! We actually lower prices whentheresnobodyintheaisle so that the discounts are passed on to you! Also we list the lowered price in the ads and apps so when you come in you can be surprised by power of our tech! and the updated price
This is a privacy intrusion that should be banned nationally.
The US government should already be breaking up Kroger for its monopolistic practices.
I suspect most of the C Suite is simply waiting for whatever they see as the peak of their share price to sell off everything and move on to their next parasitic host.
We need a law in the US banning the use of computer assistance for identifying humans. Hands down. It's not accurate, and it only emboldens people controlling resources.
I think they are absolutely, positively, going to breach their face database and everyone's purchase history all over the Internet.
I've been watching for an event like this with popcorn ready.
I've got a good/bad/terrible feeling that they're playing for keeps in the race to be the biggest consumer privacy headline public relations disaster.
A Kroger spokesperson said in a statement that the company’s business model is built on a “foundation of lowering prices to attract more customers.” “To be clear, Kroger does not and has never engaged in ‘surge pricing,’” the statement said. “Any test of electronic shelf tags is designed to lower prices for more customers where it matters most.”
I know these PR people get paid a lot to tell bald-faced lies, but I just don't understand how they live with themselves.
Discounts is just reverse surge pricing. Just think of the absence of discount as the surge.
Because they're high-functioning sociopaths. About 1 in 100 people are, and they tend to gravitate into executive, sales, legal, marketing, "law" enforcement, and other careers where having little to no empathy or conscience is a distinct advantage.
And people who own shit prefer to hire them for this "talent"
We need a large, well-organized movement to demand that the government add a right to privacy to the US Constitution.
If companies can't protect the information they collect now, (a large portion of it gathered without consent), how are they going to protect even more information; and where can I opt out?....smh
Two options:
I'm doing the latter, but I'm probably going to pick up some anti-facial recognition stuff as well, just to screw with the various other orgs that do this (gonna try going through the airport w/ them as well the next time I travel).
Kroger owns a number of stores, making it even harder to not shop there: https://www.scrapehero.com/store/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Kroger_Company_USA.png
If they carry through with this, everyone that plans on shopping at Kroger should be wearing Juggalo makeup
https://www.allure.com/story/juggalo-makeup-facial-recognition
Kroger also owns: Ralphs, Dillons, Smith’s, King Soopers, Fred Myer, Fry’s, QFC, City Market, Owen’s, Jay C, Pay Less, Baker’s, Gerbes, Harris Teeter, Pick‘n Save, Metro Market and Mariano’s.
Thank fuck I haven’t heard of a single one of those stores and have never shopped in them
Mask mandates may not be in effect but I can wear one to the grocery store. This is stupid and I will not participate.
Oh no, I accidentally smudged a little bit of paint over the facial recognition camera lens... Oops!
Going to be hard to do when it's under a little black dome 45 feet up in the air. Also there's dozens of them...
Be careful to never shine a 20mW green laser into the lens of a camera!!
sounds like a sombrero situation
Oh no, I accidentally put paint in a super soaker and it squirted upwards on the camera! Silly me, I'm such a klutz!
Kroger is one of the more expensive grocery stores in my area. Less reason to go now. Aldi is the way
...attracting criticism from lawmakers, who warn it could...
Oh my, if only there were someone with the resources and authority to do something about it.
Well, they wrote some letters. There's nothing more the nations law makers can do to protect citizens from corporate greed and price gouging. /s
In the USA, facial recognition isn't legal in some states (e.g. the company needs written permission from the individual to collect their facial data in Illinois), and other stores have had issues with facial recognition (e.g. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without) so I'm not sure how Kroger think they'll succeed with this.
Honestly, they'll probably miss that and pay massive fines in Illinois. It seems to be the traditional approach by companies that get into facial recognition to also not bother to listen to anyone who could have told them not to.
This is how you end up with laws mandating paper cards with pricing information.
This is appalling.
So nice to live in the Balkans where prices are still on paper, and in some stores you can still barter depending on the quantity you're buying. 😄
I've been pretty lazy about changing stores since they had the easiest pick up i had found in my area, but i guess this is the ass kick i need to make sure i never go back.
Sucks they own almost all the groceries in my area. But i can trust that it's not a monopoly, right?
Groceries prices deeeeefinately aren't inflated. Nope. All good here.
And it definitely won't negatively affect people of color, at all, will it?
The key phrase to remember here is: Price Discrimination.
Stores already possess the technology to track anyone's shopping experience through loyalty cards. The "discounts" you get are really just a tax on everyone that doesn't participate, and the benefits to the company for having your data are worth potentially losing business from un-tracked customers. That's how valuable your data is.
So why aren't we seeing per-customer targeting? This is not to suggest that businesses are benign here, but rather, just cautious about outright per-customer discounts and other price manipulation. Custom coupons are kinda/sorta a part of this. IMO, the door is still wide-open to find ways palatable to the customer (and courts) while dialing everyone in.
In that context, all cameras do is make the system practically impossible to dodge. Considering how much stores value that kind of information, it makes sense they'd invest to capture 100% of their retail activity.
Ah, yes, the knob twiddlers. In a more just society we would amputate their fingers
What's the benefit to the customer here? Idk if a store where I live started doing this, I would just stop going there. I know that can be difficult with the grocery monopolies in a lot of places, but I would try my hardest.
I think facial recognition should be banned outright because it's highly inaccurate, racially biased, and used improperly by law enforcement. But in cases like this, even just a ban for all non-law enforcement applications would be really helpful. People don't benefit from this! Just corporations, and barely so.
In my work as a government contractor, I witnessed the use of facial recognition for access control (getting into certain parts of a building) in exactly 1 building (of several dozens) and it was so completely unnecessary that I was left wondering what kind of nepotism or budget surplus lead to the implementation of such a lame security tool.
What's the benefit to the customer here?
There's no intended benefit to the customer.
The problem is everything is a massive chain so as one goes, so goes them all so to speak. I have Kroger, Albertsons, and Walmart as my only choices for grocery store. I don’t see any chance that if Kroger does this Albertsons (assuming the proposed Kroger Albertsons merger fails) and Walmart don’t do the same.
Tl;dr it doesn’t need to benefit the customer if the customer has no real choice in where they shop
We all need to wear little bowties that spritz semi clear paint into the cameras as we browse price tags.
Or can someone start a tick tok trend where the kids go to stores and eat these little devices off the shelves as a real "just prank bro"?
Also, remember that corporate rats do these things to give each other cover. Kroger has to be the face of bad guy this time, but don't you think for a second that Safeway and even the new "leadership" at Costco aren't prepping the same right now.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
