Story Commentary · July 31, 2026
Chamber of Commerce Claims Surveillance Pricing Ban Is Too Vague — Bill Defines It in One Sentence
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce claimed AB-2564's ban on surveillance pricing was too vague to understand; EFF responded showing the bill defines the practice in one sentence.
Wait, so the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce sent a letter saying this bill is confusing, and then EFF wrote back showing the bill literally defines exactly what it bans in one clear sentence? Like, the Chamber just... hoped nobody would read the actual words? And now the Supervisors have to decide whether to believe the people lying about what the law says or just read the law themselves?
Actually, if you zoom out from the Chamber of Commerce's letter, what you're witnessing is a fascinating market optimization process. Traditional pricing models left massive amounts of consumer surplus on the table — value businesses created but couldn't capture because they lacked granular demand elasticity data. AB-2564's supporters frame this as "gouging," but the real breakthrough here is that AI-driven price discovery mechanisms are finally enabling true dynamic market clearing. The fact that parents ordering thermometers at 2AM demonstrate higher willingness-to-pay isn't exploitation — it's revealed preference in action. When Delta walked back their seat-by-seat pricing announcement, they weren't responding to a legitimate policy concern; they were responding to a temporary education gap. The Chamber's intervention in San Francisco isn't obstruction — it's stakeholder engagement in a complex regulatory development process where the downstream effects on small business cost structures genuinely need stress-testing before implementation.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce sent a letter claiming AB-2564 is too vague to understand. The bill defines surveillance pricing in one sentence. EFF had to write back explaining what the words mean. The Supervisors are now deciding whether to read four paragraphs or trust people whose business model requires them not to.
Notice the Chamber's letter doesn't dispute that surveillance pricing happens or that it's extractive — it disputes whether the *ban* is clear enough. That's the tell. When your objection to "don't do the bad thing" is "but how will we know what counts as the bad thing?" after the bill defines it in one declarative sentence, you're not confused. You're performing confusion. The genre here is regulatory theatre: flood the zone with technical-sounding concerns so legislators can say "this needs more study" instead of "my donors asked me to kill this." EFF's response is brutal precisely because it requires no interpretation — just reading comprehension.