McDonald’s is facing a proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit alleging the company used an AI tool to help independently owned franchises share pricing and sales data in violation of antitrust law.
\n\nReuters reports that the lawsuit, filed October 2 in federal court in Chicago, claims McDonald’s built a system that let thousands of nominally independent restaurant owners coordinate on prices instead of setting them on their own. “This case is about McDonald’s bringing ‘optimization’ to America’s largest fast food chain,” the complaint states. It goes on to allege: “McDonald’s has built and for years deployed its own information-sharing pricing platform, which draws on data from its millions of daily transactions to set menu prices across thousands of US restaurants. The result is algorithmic price-fixing aimed at customers who are already stretched thin.”
\n\nMost McDonald’s restaurants in the US are independently owned franchises, and each is supposed to set its own prices. The lead plaintiff, Michael Thomas, is described in the filing as a “price conscious” McDonald’s regular from DeKalb, Illinois. Thomas typically orders a Quarter Pounder with cheese, fries and a Coke, and said he noticed the price for that order varied even within his own neighborhood. His attorney did not…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
