How does Lindsay Owens say shoppers can avoid surveillance pricing?

Lindsay Owens says the real fix is federal law, but until then shoppers can turn the experiment around: have several friends open Uber at once and take the cheapest ride, or compare airline fares on two phones. She also suggests comparing app, online and in-store prices within one retailer, using a VPN or incognito mode, and posting publicly when a price looks wrong. In her StubHub test, fee gaps fell from about $60 to about $4 in incognito mode.

• Owens said Target app prices rose for one shopper once location tracking showed them in the store parking lot.
• Owens mentioned Cart Happy, a shopping add-on that splits a basket between Walmart and Target, though she has not used it.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von (2026-11-03). Read the whole episode summary →

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