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USDA Pilot Exposes SNAP Users to Surveillance and Predatory Marketing, Study Finds

States have scrambled to expand a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pilot allowing recipients of food stamps (known formally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) to buy groceries online to avoid exposure to COVID-19. However, a recent report by the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) finds that monopolist online retailers, most prominently Walmart and Amazon’s online retail arms, are surveilling and targeting SNAP users with manipulative advertising to push unhealthy foods, induce impulsive purchases, and increase overall spending.

While these personalized and predatory marketing techniques increasingly influence all e-commerce shoppers, CDD and civil rights groups such as Color of Change and UnidosUS argue that targeted ads and data collection have disproportionate and potentially discriminatory impacts on the low-income communities and people of color who participate in SNAP.

About the Open Markets Institute

The Open Markets Institute promotes political, industrial, economic, and environmental resilience. We do so by documenting and clarifying the dangers of extreme consolidation, and by fostering discussions of ways to reestablish America’s political economy on a more stable and fair foundation.

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