Washington Post Sued Over Alleged Surveillance Pricing After Subscription Prices Jump Dramatically

A lawsuit was filed Thursday in Washington, D.C., on behalf of people who say their personal data was used by the Washington Post to jack up prices on their subscriptions. The suit is seeking class action status.

Some subscribers first started getting a notice in March that their Washington Post subscriptions would become more expensive, with the bottom of the email reading: “This price was set by an algorithm using your personal data.”

The practice of adjusting prices for individuals based on their personal information—including things like sex, age, income, and browsing history, among other factors—is known as surveillance pricing, a topic that’s become a hot-button issue in the 2020s as businesses seek to squeeze every possible penny out of consumers and their data.

The disclosure that an algorithm was used by the Washington Post was probably only included because New York passed a law in 2025 that consumers must be notified when that happens. Many other states have surveillance pricing legislation under consideration, and Maryland recently became the first to ban surveillance pricing at grocery stores, though consumer advocates believe it has too many loopholes.

Tim Giordano, partner at Clarkson Law Firm, which brought the suit, told Gizmodo his clients are first suing under the DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive consumer practices. Virtually every state has a similar statute.

“It’s important when we think about unfair and deceptive practices to point out that this was all done without the consent or knowledge of subscribers,” said Giordano.

“Nobody consented to have the Washington Post create individualized dossiers on them to be fed into an AI system designed to extract maximum value from each person based on their personal data. It’s really a new form of price gouging, individualized and fueled by AI.”

The lawsuit alleges that beginning the the mid-2010s, not long after Amazon co-founder Bezos bought the Post in 2013, the Post “covertly harvested” the personal data of newspaper subscribers through their phones, computers, and tablets, by “collecting, aggregating, and analyzing deeply personal information that it would later weaponize to determine how much more money it could extract from each Subscriber to maximize its profits.”

The lawsuit includes quotes from people who were upset about the way that the Post is tinkering with prices on an individualized level. As one comment from the lawsuit, originally found on Reddit, reads:

The price hike is one thing, but I think the problem people have with this is the use of subscribers data to determine how much. If it was a 10% increase across the board – okay that sucks, but expected, however you getting a 15% increase while your neighbors get a 10% increase based on an algorithm looking at your personal data is fucked up. If you went to a grocery store and the person in front of you paid $2 for a loaf of bread while you paid $4 for the same bread with the difference only being their browsing habits how would you feel?

The lawsuit raises the possibility that the Washington Post may have also used personal data collected by Amazon to tailor prices for Post subscribers. The suit points to a change in the Post’s privacy policy in 2025, which allowed the platform to analyze cookie data and browsing activity while creating comprehensive profiles on subscribers.

The year 2025 is significant in the Post’s history because it’s shortly after Bezos killed an endorsement of Kamala Harris in 2024 and the newspaper started to radically shift to become a mouthpiece for President Trump’s agenda. The Post has since laid off about a third of its employees, including nearly half of its journalists, and some of the most widely respected writers and editors. Subscription rates have plummeted, with hundreds of thousands cancelling in the immediate aftermath of Bezos killing the Harris endorsement, according to NPR.

It’s unclear whether any Amazon data is actually being used to set Washington Post prices, which Giordano acknowledges. Surveillance pricing tactics using AI are a kind of black box for outsiders who wonder how companies might be using their data.

“We know enough to know that the company has been consolidating information across all of their properties, and they invite consumers to connect their Amazon accounts, which brings in a whole new slew of personal data,” said Giordano.

Giordano says it’s entirely possible that we could get more insight into these black boxes through this case.

George Slover, senior counsel for competition policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told Gizmodo that this case that the allegations in the lawsuit are exactly what the group has been worried about, though it’s “too early to prejudge the factual merits of the case.” Slover has testified to state legislatures around the country about surveillance pricing and unfair tactics that can harm consumers.

“At some point, the court will determine whether and how the Consumer Protection Procedures Act or other DC law applies. And assuming the court decides it does, then the jury will ultimately decide, based on the evidence it hears at trial, whether the law has been violated,” said Slover.

The lawsuit has been filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia with Chelsea Blink listed as the lead plaintiff. Blink is listed as “one of millions” of subscribers who didn’t know that her personal data would be used to set the price of her subscription.

Blink paid $42.40 per year for her Post subscription in 2024, $127.20 in 2025, and $148.40 most recently, according to the lawsuit.

“Had Ms. Blink known that her personal information would be collected and used for surveillance pricing, algorithmic pricing, and other potential uses, she would not have agreed to such practices, would have sought to limit or prevent such data collection, or would have declined to subscribe to The Post altogether,” according to the lawsuit.

The Washington Post didn’t immediately respond to questions on Thursday. Gizmodo will update this article if we hear back.