The One Fair Price Act of 2025 makes it unlawful for a person to charge different prices to different consumers for the same or substantially similar product or service when the price difference is informed, in whole or in part, by surveillance data. The statute targets price differences driven by personal information, behavior, or biometrics gathered, purchased, or otherwise acquired and treats violations as unfair or deceptive practices enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission.
The bill includes narrowly drawn safe harbors for cost-based differences, bona fide group discounts, and loyalty-program discounts—each conditioned on specific disclosures and uniform application—and exempts the business of insurance and credit products. It also creates a private right of action with statutory damages, authorizes state parens patriae suits, and extends the prohibition to air carriers and ticket agents under federal aviation law, while requiring an SBA study on small-business impacts.
At a Glance
What It Does
Prohibits charging different prices based on surveillance data and treats such conduct as an unfair or deceptive practice under the FTC Act. The FTC may promulgate rules, and violations carry civil remedies, including private suits with statutory damages and state enforcement.
Who It Affects
Online retailers, marketplaces, ad-tech and data-broker ecosystems, price-optimization vendors, airlines and ticket agents, and any commercial actor that uses personal information, behavioral signals, or biometrics to set individualized prices.
Why It Matters
This is a first-of-its-kind federal limit on surveillance-driven individualized pricing: it replaces opaque algorithmic price-setting with a legal test focused on the data source, creates new compliance and disclosure obligations, and opens companies to statutory damages and treble damages for willful violations.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill defines the core offense as offering or charging different prices for the same or substantially similar good or service when those price differences are informed, in whole or in part, by surveillance data—broadly framed to include personal information, behavioral signals, biometrics, and purchased data. It does not regulate price differences that arise solely from legitimate cost differences; those, along with bona fide group discounts and loyalty-program discounts, are allowed only if the bill’s disclosure and uniformity conditions are met.
To use a safe harbor, businesses must provide prior disclosure of cost bases for price differences, clearly state eligibility criteria for discounts, offer discounts uniformly to all who meet those criteria, and ensure any surveillance data used only to administer a discount is not repurposed for profiling, targeted advertising, or individualized pricing. The bill also restricts loyalty programs from charging different prices for the points/credits themselves to different consumers for the same product or service.Enforcement is dual: the FTC enforces the prohibition as an unfair or deceptive act and may adopt rules; states can sue as parens patriae for injunctions, restitution or statutory damages; and individuals get a private cause of action with a minimum statutory award ($3,000 per violation or actual damages, whichever is greater), fee-shifting for prevailing plaintiffs, and a five-year statute of limitations.
The act invalidates pre-dispute arbitration clauses and class-waiver provisions to preserve judicial and collective remedies for victims.The bill carves out insurance and credit products from the prohibition and excludes small businesses whose primary business is developing or selling pricing tools. It also amends federal aviation law to make surveillance-based price setting by air carriers and ticket agents an unfair or deceptive practice and clarifies that such claims are not preempted by aviation statutes.
Finally, the Office of Advocacy at the SBA must study effects on small businesses and competition and report findings to Congress within 18 months of study completion.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The statute treats surveillance-based price differences as unfair or deceptive practices enforceable by the FTC and subject to rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Safe harbors permit cost-based price differences, broadly defined group discounts, and loyalty discounts only if businesses disclose cost bases before purchase, clearly disclose eligibility terms, and offer discounts uniformly.
Insurance and credit products are explicitly excluded from the prohibition; the definition of 'price' includes fees and any material term that affects consumer payment.
Private plaintiffs can recover the greater of actual damages or $3,000 per violation, obtain attorneys’ fees and costs, and courts may treble awards for willful violations; claims must be brought within five years of discovery.
The bill amends 49 U.S.C. 41712 to make surveillance-based price setting by air carriers and ticket agents an unfair practice and adds a non‑preemption clause preserving state and private consumer claims.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
Designates the statute as the 'One Fair Price Act of 2025.' This is purely nominal but signals the bill’s policy focus on price parity and informs how later statutory references are captioned.
Core prohibition on surveillance-based price setting
Makes it unlawful to charge different prices for the same or substantially similar product or service when the price difference is informed, wholly or partly, by 'surveillance data.' The provision centers liability on the data source—personal information, behavior, biometrics—rather than requiring proof of intent to discriminate, shifting compliance attention to data collection and use practices.
Permitted price differences subject to conditions
Creates three narrow exceptions: (1) price differences solely reflecting reasonable cost differences; (2) bona fide discounts for broadly defined groups (e.g., teachers, veterans); and (3) loyalty-program discounts for consumers who knowingly enroll. Each exception is conditional: businesses must disclose cost bases or eligibility criteria, apply discounts uniformly to eligible consumers, and limit any surveillance data used for discount administration to that lone purpose.
Enforcement framework: FTC, states, and private suits
Treats violations as FTC Act unfair or deceptive acts and gives the Commission full investigatory and remedial powers, including rulemaking. States may bring parens patriae actions for statutory damages or actual damages, and individuals have a private right of action with fee-shifting, a $3,000 statutory damages floor per violation, and a five-year discovery rule. The statute also invalidates pre-dispute arbitration and class-waiver clauses for these claims, making litigation more accessible.
Small-business study and key definitions
Directs the SBA Office of Advocacy to study impacts on small business and competition and to publish a joint report with the FTC. Definitions clarify core terms—'surveillance data' (broad), 'personal information' (includes immutable and mutable traits), 'price' (includes fees and material transaction terms), and excludes small firms that primarily sell pricing tools from the small‑business definition.
Application to air carriers and ticket agents; no preemption
Adds surveillance-based price setting to the list of unfair practices under 49 U.S.C. 41712 for air carriers, foreign air carriers, and ticket agents, and amends 41713 to say aviation law does not preempt civil or state consumer-protection claims based on the One Fair Price Act. Practically, airlines face both FTC and DOT-adjacent liability and cannot rely on aviation preemption to block suits.
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Explore Privacy in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Price-sensitive consumers online and in travel markets — they gain a statutory remedy against opaque, data-driven price differentials and may see fewer cases of individualized price spikes tied to behavioral signals.
- Privacy advocates and consumer-rights organizations — the statute curbs commercial uses of behavioral and biometric data for pricing, creating a legal tool to limit surveillance-driven monetization.
- Smaller retailers that compete on fixed pricing — they avoid being undercut by large platforms running aggressive, data-driven individualized pricing algorithms and get clearer rules on what pricing practices are disallowed.
Who Bears the Cost
- Digital platforms, e-commerce retailers, and ad-tech/data-broker firms — they must audit and possibly reengineer pricing pipelines to remove surveillance inputs, implement required disclosures, and defend against enforcement and private litigation.
- Price-optimization and algorithm vendors — companies that develop tools primarily for setting individualized prices could lose market demand or need to redesign products to exclude surveillance data or to support the bill’s recordkeeping and disclosure requirements.
- Airlines and ticket agents — the aviation-specific amendment exposes carriers and intermediaries to a new federal consumer-protection standard and preserves state and private claims, increasing litigation and compliance burdens.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is protecting consumers from opaque, surveillance-driven price discrimination while preserving legitimate, pro‑competitive price differentiation and innovation: the bill shuts down a wide set of algorithmic personalization practices to curb unfairness, but doing so risks banning beneficial targeted discounts and dynamic pricing models or imposing heavy compliance costs that disproportionately affect firms with small margins or complex tech stacks.
The bill adopts a broad, data‑centric liability hook—'surveillance data'—which produces immediate questions about scope and proof. Enforcement will hinge on whether defendants used surveillance inputs to set a price; yet many pricing systems combine internal cost signals, public market data, and third-party behavioral inputs.
Drawing a bright line in those hybrid systems will be technically and legally difficult. The mandated disclosures (for cost differences and discount eligibility) are concrete compliance levers, but the statute does not specify content standards or formats, leaving controversial choices to FTC rulemaking and litigation.
The private right of action and low prima facie burden—showing two consumers received different prices or a consumer saw different prices via different channels—creates a potent litigation pathway that may encourage serial claims and settlements. At the same time, invalidating arbitration and class-waiver clauses preserves access to courts but raises the costs of defense for firms.
The safe harbors try to preserve legitimate pricing (cost-based differentials, group and loyalty discounts) but impose operational constraints: segregating surveillance data uses, demonstrating uniformity, and making pre-purchase disclosures could be administratively heavy for firms with dynamic pricing and real-time personalization. Finally, the exclusion for insurance and credit narrows consumer protection in areas where individual risk-based pricing is long-standing, potentially driving frictional disputes over product classification.
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